Commentary
by The Aquarium
Summary: If this was real life, here's how it would have gone. Drabble series, same universe, no defined chronology; Riku, Roxas, Axel, and Sora.
1. school bus

There were two sophomores in the back seats when Roxas climbed on the bus, and that was possibly the biggest mistake of their young lives. He tromped down the aisle with hands in his pockets, backpack on one shoulder and doom hanging around his very presence like an ominous black cloud, and paused at the second-to-last seat. He didn't do anything, or say anything, and nothing in his expression changed. He just stood, and stared, and after five seconds the sophomores scampered out of the seats and past him to find a safer location near the front.

The second to last seat on the left was Roxas's. Anyone who valued their pride and netherregions knew that. He dropped into it, back to the windows and arms on the mystery blue naugahyde backrest of the seat and the one in front of it, one leg curled under him, backpack discarded on the questionably sticky floor.

Riku climbed on exactly three minutes and forty-five seconds later--Roxas timed him, specifically so he could affect a superior smirk as Riku passed him in the aisle, en route to the last-last seat on the left. "You're late, asshole."

"Fashionably, motherfucker." Riku's backpack landed against the pressed aluminum wall beneath the window of the last-last seat before Riku himself slouched into it, slid down with his knees up against the back of Roxas's seat.

"There were _sophomores_ in our seats, Rik," Roxas dropped the words like announcing that they'd just been exposed to a killer mutant virus and were doomed to die. "They were probably spanking it. Did you look before you sat?"

"Someone's in a mood." Riku leaned his head back, staring up at him with a sort of unruffled detachment, but Roxas noted that he shifted ever so slightly in the seat. "That time of the month again?"

"Fuck off." Roxas slid to the side involuntarily as the bus lurched to a start, doomed to circle slowly around the school once before finally exiting the parking lot. He readjusted his seating position, found a better angle from which to glare down at Riku. "Roll me a blunt."

If it were possible to see anything behind Riku's bangs, it could probably be noted that his eyebrows arched up at that. "Why?"

"Because I don't want to think about all the ways in which I just failed my math test."

Riku shrugged, reached for the front pocket of his backpack and started pulling out supplies--the special kind, in this instance, because they were all invisible. He pursed an invisible rolling paper between two fingers and started picking bits off an invisible nug out an invisible bag, still watching Roxas, perfectly practiced and coordinated. "You suck at trig."

"I don't need you to tell me that."

Riku chuckled, tamping down the invisible weed with both index fingers, and Riku chuckling had never boded well. "You suck at trig. Your life is over, you'll never graduate. You're a disappointment, Rox, a miniature, compact little disappointment with no love life, doomed to spend the rest of your days in your mother's basement."

Roxas scowled, evenly, swaying from side to side a bit as the bus picked up speed. "You finished rolling that yet, princess, or did you break a nail?"

Riku stared back, glare for glare, fingers still rolling the invisible paper back and forth until he deemed it complete, finished it off with a lick across the invisible glue line. "Fucker."

"Ooh, good comeback."

"Here." Riku twisted off the ends of the invisible joint and held it up. "Smoke this before you become any more unbearable."

Roxas hissed, plucked up the invisible contraband and pulled an invisible lighter out of his pocket, and reached over to open Riku's window. No sense in hotboxing the bus with imaginary smoke; he preferred that the driver to get him home with minimal incident.

The first hit was always the best. Roxas took a long pull, invisible joint pinched between his fingers, and held it until his lungs ached, let it out in a long, slow breath aimed haphazardly at the open window. Ah.

He was about to take another when the seat back jerked, jostling him, and Riku did that thing again where you couldn't see his eyebrows. Only this time he tossed his head just slightly to get his bangs out of his face. "You _do_ plan on sharing that, right?"

Roxas stared at him, lifted the imaginary joint back to his lips and took a long, slow pull like he was contemplating this. He sucked air in quick, held his breath, and finally, almost reluctantly, passed the imaginary joint down to Riku.

"Thanks." Riku's voice was flat.

Roxas rolled his eyes and exhaled, settling back more comfortably against the windows. "Whatever man, it's your stash."

Riku took his hits very seriously, hunched over the blunt and inhaling at a gradual, regulated pace. When he straightened, there were two juniors across the aisle blinking at them both, looking from one to the other and then at the empty space between Riku's fingers.

Riku shrugged a little, held out the invisible joint and said, "You wanna hit?" around his held breath. When they shook their heads no he shrugged again, reached up to tap the invisible ash out the window and pass it off to Roxas again. "You forgot about your math test yet?"

"I did until you said that, fucker."


	2. pillow fight

There was a scuffling, a flurry of sound from above him, the second floor, echoing from somewhere in the hallway. Roxas inhaled, shallow and soft, exhaled just the same, back against cold painted drywall plaster, right arm cold against the textured side of the refrigerator. His left arm was free, skin prickling, and just beyond it was the kitchen entry. A few inches of wall separated his back from the foyer, ten square feet of polished hardwood waiting to slide under his socks between there and the door, and the descending staircase occupied that same space, along the wall. Just behind him.

Somewhere above there was a shout, and the scuffling stopped, stilled, and everything went silent. He tried to be perfectly still, slow his breath, stop his heart from pounding so goddamned hard and tried to identify who had made the shout. If it was Axel, if he'd gone down, they were done for. Roxas held his breath, listening for the soft, soft, almost inaudible pad of footsteps down the carpeted stairs. The whisk of dry fingers along the banister.

He swallowed, hard, wrapped his fingers tight in the pillowcase, and waited.

The steps continued, baby-soft over the throw rug in the entry, warm from the morning sun through the cut-glass windows in the door. Delicate taps of bare feet on the hardwood, closer now, and closer, and every part of his presence was going to give him away. The shrill buzzing of his nerves, the creak of the pillowcase in his hands, his pulse, the bare, shallow breath he took before holding it, waiting. Waiting for just the right moment, when those steps were just on the verge of being right beside him. Almost.

Almost.

Palms sweating, every nerve steeled, Roxas hefted the pillow and swung.

_WHUMP!_

"MOTHER--" the intended assailant screeched, stumbling backwards and barely catching himself, one hand on the frame of the entryway, limbs flailing, silver hair flying around the pillow that just slammed across his face, "--_FUCKER_!"

Roxas dodged, keeping low, unable to restrain a hysterical laugh and tried to twist past Riku, out of the kitchen and into the foyer and with one hand on the floor he almost made it until--

_WHUMP!_

Riku's pillow landed hard in the center of his back, knocking him flat, half on the kitchen tile and half on the hardwood, a halfhearted, "Ow, fuck," for the sting in his knees from landing. Something was scurrying on the second floor again, hard footsteps running down the hall and Roxas scrabbled at the slick floor beneath him, barely ducking as Riku aimed another swing that landed hard against the wall just over Roxas's head.

He rolled to the side, aimed a swing against Riku's knee that knocked him just off-balance enough that he had to grab the frame again and Roxas used that opportunity well, flailing back to his feet and snatching up his pillow. He ran three steps, slid past the entry to the living room in his socks and had to double back another to race into it, diving behind the couch just as Riku roared and pounded after him.

"Get back here and fight me like a man!"

He couldn't help it. If he had any sense of preservation, Roxas thought, he would keep his mouth shut, stay low and try to sneak around to the french doors that led to the patio. They were right there, beckoning, promising freedom even if he had to run the five blocks home in nothing but flannel sleep pants and white socks, pillow inexplicably clutched in one hand, toothbrush and the promise of blueberry pancakes when Sora's mom got home from the night shift forgotten.

Roxas, however, had never known when to quit, and thus after the challenging bellow he immediately shouted back, "But if I'm the man, what does that make you, Riku?"

"The princess that's gonna kick your ass, micro machine!"

The pillow landed on the couch back right next to his head before Roxas thought to bolt, startled into action like a sleeping cat woke by thunder, scampering around the corner on all fours before righting himself, hurling a poorly-aimed swing at Riku as he spun to follow only to stumble over the coffee table, into the easy chair, which jostled the piano behind it and something fell to the floor with a resounding, incriminating _thump_.

The running footsteps on the second floor stopped at the head of the stairs, and Sora's voice was loud enough to carry over anything and everything, echoing through the house in resounding doom. "IF ANYONE BREAKS SOMETHING IN MY MOM'S HOUSE I'M CUTTING OFF HIS BALLS!"

They both froze, Roxas sprawled on the recliner nearly upside-down, Riku on his feet behind the coffee table with the pillow raised over his head, tilted just slightly towards Sora's voice. He blinked once, and Roxas blinked twice, and then Riku said, "That was totally your fault."

"The fuck it was, you tripped me, you oversized fashion doll!"

"Shove it, Baby Smurf, I was nowhere _near_ you!"

"Go fucking wash your hair, prima--oh _shit_."

Just as immediately and in tandem they broke into action as footsteps pounded down the stairs--Roxas scrambled off the chair, tumbled to the floor and squirmed back to his feet in the space between the recliner and the coffee table, jostling it and heard something else land on the carpet with a muffled thud. He made a break for the french doors but Riku caught him, unmerciful pillow to the side of the head and he went down, rolling, switched directions midway and dodged Riku's feet, scrabbling on all fours under the coffee table just as Sora flew through the entry, all wild brown hair and yellow flannel pajamas and a star-patterned pillow swinging from his fists. Momentum propelling him, he leapt onto the coffee table and over it, garbled battle cry ringing out (and it sounded sort of like "EAT KEYBLADE" if Roxas really thought about it), and--

_WHUMP!_

The piano made a soft, disturbed noise as he and Riku both hit the floor.

"PWNED!" Sora cheered, and Roxas wriggled out from under the coffee table, opposite the boypile and towards the entry, only chancing a look over his shoulder when he was safely on his feet and not yet slipping on the hardwood, one hand on the frame of the entry. Riku was on his back, writhing from side to side and feebly trying to defend himself as Sora whacked him with the pillow again and again, Riku's own weapon lost and tumbled away, half-propped against the french doors.

Roxas sighed in relief and slipped into the foyer, padding slowly and softly to keep his balance and not attract attention, knowing Sora would come for him next once Riku was defeated to his satisfaction. He crept into the kitchen, slid to the side into the nook where he'd started, forehead against the side of the refrigerator, and for a moment he just breathed. Inhale, exhale, pillow against his knees and both hands curled in the case, and he considered his options. The french doors were out, and to get to the front door he'd have to pass the living room. He thought there might be a rear exit through the laundry room, if he remembered right, and that was just a bit further through the kitchen. He could stay, of course, there was his toothbrush to think about, and the battered green blanket he kept in his pillowcase that Riku had taken hostage ("Aww, does widdle Roxas need his security blanket to go to slumber parties wif?") and pancakes. He did love blueberry pancakes.

But if he stayed here, he was done for, and that was all there was to it.

Roxas nodded to himself, one hand up alongside his face, squaring his shoulders to make a break for the laundry room, and--

Breath, right against the back of his neck.

"Aren't you forgetting someone?"

He spun, a proper pirouette on one sock on the slick tiles, room spinning around him in a sickening blur, but Axel was faster. He swung wildly, one-handed, barely caught Axel on the shoulder but--

_WHUMP!_

Right in the chest, a direct hit, and Roxas went down.

Cold tile against his back, he struggled to catch his breath for a moment, and a pillow dropped to his chest, Axel's hands landed on either side of his head, face swimming through Roxas's vision somewhere above. Grinning, green eyes twinkling.

"We," Roxas gasped, wheezed, inhaled and tried again. "We had an alliance, you bastard."

Axel chuckled, infinitely pleased with himself and he had every reason to be. Moment of victory and all that. "What d'you think this is, reality television? Sorry Rox, but this ain't the Big Brother house. This is _war_."

"I am," Roxas said, eyes narrowed in a dark glare that didn't work as well when his vision was spinning and his voice was wheezing, "_so_ freezing your underwear next weekend."


	3. bedhead plus bathroom

Roxas woke up to the sensation of a blanket tickling his nose, of various things piled on top of him. He yawned, first, batted ineffectually at the offending fabric before opening his eyes, attempting a light stretch that made things shift, and blinked at the light filtering through the blanket covering his face. He'd fallen asleep on the floor cushion, face down, bare feet cold in the morning air and itchy against the carpet. He made an annoyed breath, shifted onto his elbows and felt something slip off his head, heard it land on the carpet with a hollow sound, small round objects rolling and clattering in plastic.

He frowned, pushed the blanket away almost violently and hissed when the light stung his eyes, morning sun filtering through miniblinds, and saw a blue plastic serving bowl rocking on its side, a few stray kernels rolling around within it. Roxas stared at this for a good minute, still blinking away spots and waiting for his brain to follow the rest of him up and out of sleep.

Someone... had set the goddamn _popcorn bowl_ on his _head_.

Roxas grumbled, not awake enough yet to do anything less passive-aggressive. Something about not being a fucking table--while he shifted again, pushed up further, other objects sliding down around him. A Playstation controller hit the floor and he realized they were cables, because he'd fallen asleep between the beanbag and the console stand, of course. He continued in his attempts to sit up, twisting to the side, shedding a few empty game cases (Gauntlet, Dynasty Warriors, Four Swords, Super Smash, Guitar Hero--how goddamn many video game tournaments could four human beings have in one night?) and a half-full package of Twizzlers. Around his hips the objects weighing him down became Axel's legs; Axel himself was sleeping at an odd angle, head and shoulders on the beanbag, both arms folded over his face, butt on the carpet, legs draped over Roxas like he was an oversized body pillow.

He grumbled some more, added a bit of hissing and cussing while attempting to wriggle out from under Axel's legs, noting in his grumblings that people that damn skinny had no right to be that damn heavy, that the universe and everything in it sucked, that he was never eating that much junk food in one night again, that Liu Bu had come to destroy them all and could damn well start with the skinny ass redhead weighing him down.

Roxas stumbled out from under blanket and legs alike after several minutes of this, crawling to his feet and promptly tripping over the popcorn bowl, cussing in a hiss and rubbing sleep from the corners of his eyes. Axel was still dead to the world. Sora was a single hand emerging from a steadily breathing pile of blankets on his bed, snore muffled by pillows. Riku was...

Curiously absent.

He made a face at the mirror on Sora's closet door, noting how his hair was sticking straight up on one side from being pressed that way against the pillow. Roxas scowled, tugged at it with his fingers, cursed the way that coming down off a sugar high made him sleep in an immobile lump, which in turn resulted in horrific bedhead _and_ being utilized as an impromptu coffee table.

Riku, though. Riku had gone downstairs to get brownies or something, hadn't he? Brownies and Pepsi. It was three AM by then, though, and no amount of sugar or caffeine was keeping their collective brains and bodies from shutting down, demanding sleep; it was a wonder someone had the presence of mind to turn the TV off rather than leaving it running on the Street Fighter selection screen, background music playing on an endless loop.

Maybe he got lost. Maybe they'd find him sleeping in the coat closet again.

Roxas padded across the carpet, footsteps nothing near silent, fingers moving to work the sleep out of the other eye. He inexplicably ran into the doorframe on the way out, yawned around half of a cuss word and squinted at the hallway, frowning, because he was almost sure his footsteps were echoing. One tired thump after another, reverberating as another thump less than half a beat later, somewhere beyond. The echo was more hollow, though, more like... stairs.

In the hall outside the bedroom door, Roxas turned, and across the hall, at the head of the stairs, Riku turned, and for a moment they both stood there, blinking.

Riku's scowl was darker than usual, which probably meant he'd fallen asleep somewhere uncomfortable. His hair was frazzled, single strands rumpled into kinks and sticking out everywhere, and what this resulted in was giving him a countenance similar to that of a wet cat. He stood and blinked at Roxas, and Roxas stood and blinked back, and then Riku made a noise that was mostly breath, that was probably meant to be a grumbling Good Morning but failed at anything resembling speech.

Then, at the exact same moment, as though the same thought was running through both of their minds, both boys turned their heads and attention to the bathroom. Exactly the same distance between them, door ajar, interior softly lit by the skylight. The bathroom was a haven, a trophy, a singular opportunity to emerge from the previous evening with the tamest bedhead. Surely, such a feat would earn extra blueberry pancakes and honorary first place in the Dynasty Warriors tournament. Which he would have won anyway if Axel hadn't--

The glance at the bathroom swiftly broke at the same instant, Riku and Roxas both turning attention back to the other instantly, exchanging accusing glares. Fists curled. Eyes narrowed. Tumbleweeds may or may not have drifted across the dusty road in a gentle breeze.

The bathroom was a prize worthy of battle.

Roxas didn't dare move, or hardly breathe, lest it become some kind of tip-off that would cause Riku to bolt before he could do the same. He had to wait, calculate, gather all his reserves, all his mental acuity (which wasn't much at this time of the morning), and hold it tight. Deathly still, muscles coiling, weight ever so slightly shifting forward, until--

The sound of the central air system clicking on was like a gunshot.

Riku bolted at the exact same second Roxas did and they clashed in the doorframe, struggling to shoulder each other out of the way. Roxas attempted sticking a foot out to trip Riku, and Riku retaliated by pushing him back with one hand to the face. Riku reached for the doorknob and Roxas elbowed him in the kidney.

"Fucker."

"Your makeup can wait, princess, I need to do my hair."

"Your hair always looks like that, you little shit!"

It was probably the yelling that woke up the other two. Sora emerged first, arms resting atop his head and toothbrush in his mouth, and by the time he arrived there was a brawl going on somewhere between the carpet and the tile. He stood and blinked down at it for a few minutes, eyelids heavy and unimpressed, then dropped his arms and started brushing, humming the alphabet song for each section of teeth and using that equally to time the battle.

Axel appeared next, picking at spots of nacho cheese on his t-shirt, exchanging a look with Sora and their equally gnarly bedheads, both of them carrying the appearance that they'd lost a long, fierce conflict with a light socket. He offered a toothy grin, made the most Good Morning-like sound anyone had made yet, and then noted the fight occurring in the bathroom entry. And promptly exhaled a mumbled, "W'th'fuck?"

Sora shrugged.

"Guys," Axel attempted, almost but not quite daring to nudge one foot into the brawl. "Hey, break it up, I gotta pee."

"See," Sora muttered in between two slightly different renditions of his ABC's, "this is why I always put my toothbrush in the dresser when you guys come over."

"This doesn't alleviate the fact that _I have to pee_."

"There're some nicely concealing lilac bushes behind the garage."

"Oh fuck no. No." Axel repeated the word in emphasis, shaking his head, and he and his screaming bladder promptly turned on his heel and marched back to the bedroom. "I'm getting a fucking pillow."


	4. radio

Axel drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on the tuning knob of the ancient radio that was all his '75 Duster had to boast. The damn thing didn't have the decency to have a tape deck, or anything at all aside from two knobs and a little red needle that was impossible to position among the line of white numbers in any way that made logical sense in regards to the stations they brought up. Axel called it 'character'.

Roxas called it a safety hazard, especially when Axel shifted into third and changed lanes without looking up from the needle.

"Holy mother of _fuck_, man, watch where you're going!"

"There was no one there." Axel shrugged, glanced at the road and returned to his attempts to get 103 to come in clearly. "I have a sixth sense about these things."

"STAY IN YOUR GODDAMN LANE!"

Axel sat up and jerked the wheel straight just in time to keep them from drifting into oncoming traffic. He chuckled softly. "Whoops."

"One day," Roxas spat, gripping the ohshit handle with both hands, "you're going to kill me. And then--then I am going to _haunt your ass_ for the _rest of your life_."

Axel grinned, shifted into fourth as the road meandered out of the city and merged into a two-lane highway, speed limit climbing higher. "You promise?"

The static on the radio magically cleared when _Got Me Wrong_ started playing, something that seemed to happen at Axel's command whenever any particular station was airing one of his favorites. The road curved and the car sped, well above the posted limit, and they broke out of the lines of evergreens to fly along the coastline, the bay a shimmer of silver under the clear sky.

Roxas rolled his window down, more secure now that both the station and gear were set, speedometer hovering somewhere around 75 like daring the cops to point their radar this way. The sun was near to setting, the air that whipped through the window was cool and smelled like the rain that broke up that morning, heavy gray clouds sliding out of the sky to leave the world behind, wet and glittering. Both of Axel's hands were on the wheel, fingers tapping on the crossbars, lounged back in his seat and staring ahead like he'd never seen trees or mountains or the steel blue glint of the ocean before.

It was an hour, maybe, before the car slowed. Roxas was almost asleep, would be aside from the noise and all-encompassing rumble and vibration of the old car, head against the windowsill, letting the wind slide through his hair. They pulled over at a cove; Axel killed the engine and pulled the parking brake without a word, climbed out without asking or expecting Roxas to follow, just knowing that he would.

The beach was small, lined with sharp rocks and scattered with small, ice-cold tide pools full of purple starfish and periwinkle. The sand was wet and stiff under his feet and the rock walls left them in shadow; beyond them the sun had dipped low enough on the horizon to throw brilliant red and pink light across the bay, turning everything to either blazing fire or ink-black silhouette.

Axel let out a long sigh and dropped flat on his back, knees up and feet sprawled, hands folded behind his head. Roxas held very still while a small, pink crab examined the rubber toe of his left shoe, waiting until it crawled safely away to go sit crosslegged somewhere on Axel's right, leaned back on the heels of his palms, sand digging into his skin. Watching the stars switch on.

Silently, he wondered if Axel was okay, now. Out loud, Roxas wasn't supposed to know that Axel _wasn't_ okay; out loud nothing was ever wrong. Roxas never said the things that were on his mind and Axel said all the things that weren't on his mind, and in that way their verbal relationship never wandered into deeper, more dangerous territory.

Silently, though, it was okay for Roxas to know that Axel needed someone to sit in the passenger seat while he drove down a deserted coastal highway like a bat out of hell. That he needed someone to wait on the sand while the sun set and the stars came out, to sit beside him while he didn't say anything at all. To know that he wasn't okay, and stick around anyway.

"We should go to Sora's," were the first words Axel spoke since Roxas had threatened to haunt him, breathed out into the night air after the last of the blood red sunset died away. In the dim twilight, Roxas could just make out the little crab returning to tug at his shoelaces, pincers waving in irritation. "Later, I mean. Not now. In a bit."

"Mmk." Roxas leaned forward on his knees, poked the crab away with one finger and received a sharp pinch for his troubles. "Ow. Little fucker."

"Huh?"

"Not you." Roxas scowled down at the crab, scuttling back now to face him down like some kind of challenge, and stuck his abused finger in his mouth. "This goddamn crab bit me."

Axel laughed--and laughed, and laughed some more, and laughed so hard he curled onto his side and clutched his stomach, forehead against the sand. Roxas scowled at him and waited for the tirade to stop, for Axel's breath to slow and return to something approaching normal. "What?"

"Give it to Riku as a pet," Axel suggested, climbing to his feet in one smooth movement, hands slipping into his pockets. "They'll get along great."


	5. dance

He met Sora at a school dance late in 7th grade, which sounded, in retrospect, cheesier than it actually was.

Roxas went to the dances alone. Not because he had to, but because all the people he could have accompanied were the sort who staked out seats on the low rise of bleachers pulled out in the gym and complained about the people actually dancing having more fun than they were. Roxas didn't approve of spending his precious two dollars and handing over his off-brand shoes for a dance entry fee unless he was damn well going to dance, and therefore his attendance was both habitually solo and generally ignored.

Reputation in junior high was a finicky and fickle bitch and she had never decided what to do with Roxas. Roxas was the kid with the perpetual bedhead, with the Salvation Army wardrobe consisting of threadbare t-shirts with the logos worn off and jeans five years out of style that never fit quite right. His mother told him he was cute, that she'd be beating the girls off with a stick any day now but she didn't seem to realize that girls didn't like boys with flat expressions, who thought more than they spoke, who sat at the front of class so they didn't have to look at anyone.

He figured he was an anomaly. No one liked him, but no one bothered him, either. He was a ghost, a nobody among nobodies, sidling away from the other outcasts who by all rights should have been his wingmen--because all they did was either bemoan their fate and wish they could fit in, or focus all their creative energies on resenting the people who could.

Roxas was fine with being ignored.

He never bothered asking anyone to dance. Never bothered finding a group to hang on the edges of, never bothered with anyone else there. He found a spot somewhere to the side of the center of the crowd where the shadows were thickest and no one was paying attention and let his nerves vibrate along with the Real McCoy, C&C Music Factory, Tag Team, House of Pain, Montell Jordan, En Vogue--and pogoed until he couldn't feel his legs, and when Bryan Adams or Mariah Carey started playing he'd stumble sock-footed out into the foyer, blinking spots from his eyes, and dig two carefully hoarded quarters out of his pocket to buy a Pepsi from the machine. He'd lean against the wall, blood rushing to his head and let the pop fizzle on his tongue, and wonder if being high felt like this.

On that particular night the DJ was spinning Kris Kross, and he was having sixth grade flashbacks of playing mix tapes in the computer lab until the teacher switched off the boombox because too many kids had decided to get up in the aisles and _jump, jump_. Because Kris Kross would make ya do that. It was hilarious, and he was jumping up and down and laughing like an idiot, hands in the air, and he must have been going too long, sending too much blood and too many endorphins to his brain because his balance tipped, he listed sideways, tripped and stumbled hard into a head-on collision with another body, sending both of them down with a thud and a squeak on the waxed gym floor.

On the ground, the music sounded softer, almost distant, floating somewhere over the heads of the people still standing and dancing, barely noticing the crash that had just occurred in their midst. The bass made the floor vibrate otherwise, and Roxas scrambled half-upright with that vibration against the palms of his hands, blinking at the kid he'd just knocked over. He'd never done anything like it, never so much as touched or exchanged a glance with anyone else at the dances, not even with anyone in class, in the crowded hallways, the deafening lunchroom. He was a ghost. Insubstantial. No one noticed him, and he liked it that way.

Now, though, he'd come in direct contact with another student, someone who had friends and influence, someone who could _give_ him that fickle and finicky reputation. By Monday he could transform from a ghost to a clumsy asshole. An idiot. A freak who danced by himself. He sat half-propped and stared, took stock of the kid--pretty average, nothing special, kind of wild hair, striped socks. For one terrifying moment the kid looked like he was shaking and Roxas thought he might be hurt. That his mother might be getting a phone call, that there might be a lawsuit and what would they do then, with no money, no lawyer? They'd be homeless on the streets, he'd have to sit on the corner and beg for change like the panhandlers out by the mall and what if someone from school saw _that_? He'd run into someone on the dance floor, and now suddenly his life was over. That's all there was to it.

And then the kid flopped onto his back, and he was _laughing_.

Roxas blinked, and the kid kept laughing, arms around his stomach like he'd just heard the funniest joke of his life. He blinked again, and the kid was still laughing, sitting up gradually, one hand on the floor, and when he saw the look on Roxas's face he just started laughing harder, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, one hand slapping his knee.

Roxas blinked again, and inexplicably, like an infection that crept from one boy on the floor to another, he snickered and started laughing, too.

He didn't know how long that went on, the two of them just sitting on the floor and laughing like complete fools, unable to stop because the other would keep going, until finally they ran out of energy and the DJ was playing Madonna and they grabbed each other's hands, pulled each other up, exchanged slaps on the shoulder. Roxas figured that was it. Figured he'd dodged a bullet, that the kid would find it entertaining and nothing else, maybe never even talk about it. The dance ended three songs later, and he was the last to shuffle out, tie his shoes back on and go to wait for the line of cars in the parking lot to circle around to his mother's.

On Monday, though, a kid with wild hair and blue eyes appeared by his locker and said, "Hey," and then, unbelievably, Roxas found himself walking to class at Sora's side. When the lunch bell rang, the kid arrived in the same place and said, "Hey," again, and then inexplicably Roxas found himself being hauled to a cafeteria table by the elbow, sat down among people he'd seen and knew the names of but had never spoken to. For a moment, he wished he was still sneaking his lunch into the library, past the giant bold NO FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED signs to hunker down in a corner by himself, surrounded by the smell of greasy food and old paper. For a moment he wished, and then Sora was asking him what he thought of the new Boyz II Men album. If he was in the morning Pre-Al class and understood compound equations. If he'd be interested in smuggling in some glowsticks to the dance next month and camping out on the trampoline in Sora's backyard afterward.

And before he realized what he was doing, Roxas started talking.


	6. lunch break

Axel sat between the first and second flights of the back stairs by the math hall, leaning against the wall, one long leg stretched out in front of him like he had nowhere to be, the other bent with his scuffed, knock-off boot planted on the hard cement floor of the landing, ready to spring into action. One bony elbow rested on his knee, drowning in the heavy fabric of his old hooded sweatshirt, while his other arm draped loosely at his side, palm turned downward to protect his CD player.

Yeah, this was _his _spot. The bathrooms had been out of the question, too obvious, too much of a hassle to maintain some fucking _privacy; _instead he'd just slunk around the on the lower floor, dangerous sneer twisting his features in a silent dare, tempting anyone to just _try_ and talk to him, ambled to the end of the row of lockers and peered up to see that flat little piece tucked away in the corner of the school. _Choice_.

Just had to stare down the few dipshits who stumbled on his stairs and thought they could use them without his permission, throw the occasional disarming grin at a teacher or two and pretend he was on his way to class, double back for some quality practice in the art of truancy. He was a badass senior, top of the food chain, flunking the last trimester of algebra, and he already had enough math credits to graduate so if he wanted to spend two hours or so listening to Alice in Chains then so what? This was _his_ time, when he could mouth the words to the songs he knew by heart, tilt his head back against the plaster and be nobody until class ended and his stairs became the way for teachers upstairs to get to the downstairs lounge.

After fifteen minutes, the first lunch bell rang and Axel's default sneer snapped in place, ready to meet newcomers and anyone with a sob story about how the math hall was closer to a locker or whatever-the-fuck. He was adept at anticipating intruders, headphones lowered on his ears just enough to pick up footfalls, hand poised to snatch his CD player and slip it into his sweatshirt pocket. Five minutes later and he relaxed; everyone else was in the commons, grouped together at tables with the crap the foodservice liked to call lunch.

Another two minutes passed, and then his ears picked up on the telltale shuffles of someone drawing closer. Axel tensed for a moment, long enough to pick up on the way those shoes hit the floor above before planting on the top step still out of sight, then he relaxed, sneer twisting into an easy smirk just as a familiar pair of beat-up skater shoes came into view, followed by a blond head that must've been slumped over a desk again, judging by the cowlick from boring textbook hell. "How's the war going?" Axel asked, letting his headphones slip down on his shoulders.

"The British are losing," Roxas muttered, dropping onto the floor beside him. He held out a bag of chips, and Axel reached in and grabbed a handful, promptly stuffing it into his mouth all in one bunch before taking the open soda from Roxas's other hand. "That's too bad," he said, words muffled by a mouthful of Doritos and Pepsi. "I had high hopes for the Empire." He cranked up the volume on his CD player and adjusted the dial until they both could hear Lane's voice coming from the tinny speakers hanging around his neck.

Roxas just snorted, tossed back his own handful of Cool Ranch, and waved his hand for the soda can, taking a gulp of his own, the two of them going back and forth until it was empty and the chip bag had to be tipped up to pour out the crumbles, and if Roxas let Axel take a few more handfuls, suck down a few more gulps of the Pepsi, then it was only his finder's fee for staking out their prime lunch hideaway. Sora would show up soon with a giant chocolate chip cookie, blaming their tardiness on Riku's affinity for the jalapeno pretzels, then grumble when he realized the chips and the soda were already gone. Then they'd all have twenty minutes to cram down junk food, insult each other (Riku and Roxas liked to call it "banter"), listen to _Dirt_, scare off the sophomores, and forget about having to go back to classes and the idiots in them and everywhere else, no pressure, just a lunch break.


	7. forgetful

_Monday._

"So, Twinkle Toes told me I would catch you out here."

Axel snorted, grinning behind his knuckles, a real tongue-between-the-teeth smirk. "'Twinkle Toes'," he repeated, snickering. The image of Roxas's new shoes passed behind his eyes and Axel motioned for Riku to sit beside him on the stoop. "I don't think you quite grasp how _enraged_ he was because Kairi spilled those sparkles on his shoes. Sora had to practically hold him back from her."

Riku smiled, a crooked little tip of the lips as he sagged down to sit on the cement steps beside Axel. "Anyway... So, I wanted to tell you--"

Riku's pocket began to vibrate. The silver-haired boy frowned, reaching into his hip pocket and pulling out his cell phone. "God, seriously?" Flipping it open, he read the message he'd just received with a scowl slowly carving across his face. Axel watched it grow with bored but attentive green eyes, brows risen.

"What?" Axel grunted, propping his chin in his palm once Riku had snapped the phone shut and shoved it back in his pocket.

"I have to run out for groceries," Riku hissed beneath his breath, hoisting himself off the stoop. "If Sora's still here when I'm done, I'll be back over, too."

Axel rolled his shoulders in a limp shrug, smirking faintly. "Sure. I'm not doing anything today. And as soon as they're done scrubbing the sparkles off Roxas's shoes, I _really_ won't have anything to do."

Riku uttered a light laugh as he made his way to the driveway, nodding absently, fully aware that the reason he and Axel had been banished from the house was because they'd been cracking every joke in the book about Roxas's poor Converse.

"I'll be back," Riku called over his shoulder as he swung open the car door. Axel waved slighly, then sighed in boredom and sprawled back against steps behind him.

---

_Tuesday._

"Well, maybe there's a bug going around," Roxas suggested, sorting through the stack of books he'd laid out on the living room floor. Monday they'd congregated at Axel's; today they were at Roxas's. The blond tapped the thickest of the schoolbooks he'd scattered about. "This class is awesome," he said.

"I'm glad you had a good day," Axel said. "Meanwhile, I'm nauseous and I really can't afford to be sick right now."

"Pepto Bismol," Sora piped up, eyes wide and blue and a helpful smile spread on his face. "Do you have Pepto Bismol, Roxas?"

"Just look at the sparkley mess of Roxas's shoes and you'll barf it all up," Riku murmured from Roxas's couch, sprawled across the cushions with his heels pressed to Sora's thigh and his forearm across his eyes. Roxas guffawed, but Axel stopped him from saying anything, clamping a hand over his mouth as he scooted off the easy chair to sit beside him.

"Leave the princess alone. We'll just stick a pea beneath her mattress tonight and get her back."

Riku grabbed the throwpillow from beneath his head and blindly tossed it in the general direction of the redhead and the blond, scowled at the laughter that signified he'd totally missed and threw his arm off his head.

"Shut up," he snapped.

"Creative," both Axel and Roxas responded, nearly simultaneously. They looked at each other in wonder, then started to laugh again, surrounded by Roxas's schoolbooks.

"Oh, _crap_--" Sora clambered around on the couch, turning to look at the clock. "We've gotta get back to my house--"

Roxas turned to Axel, a prim smile on his face but a conspiratorial gleam in his eyes. "Riku's eating dinner at Sora's tonight. Meeting the 'rents, if you know what I mean."

_Wednesday._

The phone rang. It vibrated a few times on the floor before Riku realized it was ringing, and he rolled over to stretch off the side of his bed, snatching the little cell phone up off the carpet. "It's...Axel," he said, and answered the call.

Sora sat up on the other side of the bed, hair falling across his temples as he propped his arms on Riku's hip. "Why is he calling you? Is he okay?"

Riku shushed him with the wave of a hand. "Yeah. Yeah, I can talk. You okay?"

Sora began to fiddle with the hem of Riku's T-shirt, frowning softly.

"Mm... Still not feeling good? ...What? What a douche. That's fucking horrible. ...You spent all day...washing the ceiling?"

Sora cocked a brow, tipping his head and leaning closer to Riku's upper half in hopes of picking up on the voice on the other line.

After a long pause in which Axel was telling a long and probably very entertaining story, Riku said very bluntly, "...Gross." Then: "Well, where's Roxas?"

"He's working," Sora offered, and Axel said the same thing into Riku's ear. Riku frowned.

"Wanna come over or something?"

The brunet sprawled across Riku's side wriggled slightly, a smile forming on his face. Scrabbling for the phone, he yanked it from Riku's ear and cried, "We could always pay Roxas a little _visit_."

"He'd kill me," Axel said bleakly, but then he laughed. The laugh was audible to both boys in Riku's bedroom. "That'd be fun," the boy on the other end of the phone connection added, "but I don't think we should."

They hung up then, and Sora turned an immediate frown on Riku. "Axel's been really quiet lately. Do you think something's wrong?"

"Oh, _shit_!" Riku hissed, bumping his palm to his forehead. "I forgot to tell him _again_--"

---

_Thursday._

Axel sat cross-legged around the trunk of movies in the corner of his living room. "Alright, we've got a _long_ list of shit to watch. But. Riku and Sora said they were busy tonight, and Riku's a loser for not seeing these in the first place, so let's just... Let's watch _Robin Hood_."

Roxas nodded, watching from the sofa as Axel sat in front of the trunk of movies, his hands moving emphatically as he spoke. His shoulders sagged as he let out a sigh, and then he grabbed the Disney movie and retreated to the couch.

Roxas shifted, allowing him more room to sprawl across the cushions. He licked his lips, and pointed to the bowl of cereal he was currently making his way through.

Axel blinked at him, as if skeptical, glancing from the cereal to Roxas and back again. "...No," he finally said, brows rising. "As appetizing as those crunchberries look, I'm not that hungry."

_Friday._

The kitchen door flew open and the knob hit the wall behind it with a loud _crack_ing sound. Axel flinched. Ooh, if it was that fuck Demyx again, making another mark on the wall--or if it was Roxas, pissed off about something or another, or just being all important and announcing his entrance--

Riku hoisted himself up out of Axel's peripheral vision and onto the counter beside the sink. He waved modestly.

Axel blinked, slowly cocking a brow. Hands plunged down into the soapy water filling the sink basin, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, he opened his mouth, took a steady breath, then frowned sharply and demanded, "Haven't you ever heard of knocking?"

"Your dad let me in," Riku explained, legs crossing at the ankles. "Just, listen. Don't get me off-track. I'll forget again."

"Forget?" Axel repeated, smirking crookedly. He flicked the tap on and began to rinse the sudsy silverware. "So, today was really tiring. I--"

Riku chuckled lightly and waved his hands. "I said don't get me off-track. I've been forgetting to say this all week, and I finally remembered, and I came all the way out here to let you know--"

"All the way out here? Really? I'm flattered."

Riku fell into a thin frown, leveling an intense stare on the boy washing dishes. Axel cocked his head and laughed, shoulders rolling.

"Congratulations on the job," Riku breathed in a rush, nodding to punctuate.

Axel peered at him incredulously for a moment, then turned the water off so as not to waste it. "...Dude," he said after a long pause, "I even told you last night I had work this morning. And you didn't remember to congratulate me _then_?"

Riku curled into an apologetic frown, shrugging limply. "It just...totally slipped my mind until now. There was a lot going on last night--"

"Geez, that's the last time we put a pea under your mattress. I never knew that could fuck a guy up so much." Axel grinned, turning the faucet on again as Riku uttered a scoff and slid off the counter, strutting out of the kitchen.


	8. chemistry, part one

When Axel had picked out his science elective, his immediate choice had been chemistry, thinking maybe he'd get his hands on some potentially hazardous chemicals and let Riku figure out all of that equations bullshit. Fifteen minutes in, he discovered that most of the stuff in the beakers just smelled really bad and weren't likely to explode, the chem labs were designed to be flame retardant, and Riku expected Axel to do just as much work as he did. The fucker.

In a word, fifth period chemistry was _boring_. Sure, he'd memorized the fucking periodic table, knew what each set of letters represented, but ask him to apply them to anything, convert them or whatever, and Axel was screwed. He'd go in expecting to pass each test, thinking he finally understood what the hell was going on, and instead ended up failing miserably. And now, yeah, he was flunking out of chemistry. It didn't bother him all that much, but now he had to spend two hours writing down gibberish for the rest of the trimester until he could switch out into marine biology; at least that way he and Sora would be able to slice open a dogfish and maybe try to get people to kiss it, hold up its brain and call it the flux capacitor.

So while he waited for the remaining two months to crawl by, Axel trudged up to the work station he shared with Riku, both of them whipping out hair ties like a weapon of choice and pulling their hair back from the Bunsen burners, and then he found ways to amuse himself while Riku figured out what the hell they were supposed to do with the materials laid out and ready. He picked up one of the beakers filled with shit that always seemed to smell like sulfur, no matter what was in them, shook it a little and cocked his head toward his friend. "Is this flammable?" he asked, just loud enough to draw a few laughs from some other students, as well as the predictable nervous glance Mr. Wallace flashed at the nearby fire extinguisher.

Riku hardly even glanced up from where he was scribbling out some equation on his worksheet, dorky safety goggles pushed up and holding a few stray wisps of hair away from his eyes. "Dude." He reached out, still writing out something with the other hand, grabbed the beaker and set it back down as far away from the burner as possible. "Have you even come up with a hypothesis yet?"

Axel rolled his eyes and leaned against the counter, kicking his heel back against the cabinets under the sink they shared with station six. No, he hadn't written a damn thing down on his worksheet other than his name and the date, and when he finally did jot something down, he'd probably throw in lyrics from the Monkees's theme song every here and there to see if Mr. Wallace's teacher's assistant was really paying attention when he graded papers. I mean, yeah, he knew that whatever they were doing was going to make the flame burn _green_, and he knew _why_, but he didn't know how to put it down on paper. So instead of spending all of his time and energy writing boring responses that made him sound cave-mannish with redundancy and a simple-mindedness he hated feeling, he twirled his pencil over his thumb and cleared his throat, speaking out clearly over the murmurs and clankings of a working classroom to address the student occupying the space next to theirs. "Hey, Demyx, can I use your hair for our chemical reactions project next week?"

Demyx promptly looked up from his counter space, eyed Mr. Wallace carefully as he helped another pair of students on the other side of the room, then flipped Axel the bird when he was sure that the teacher's back would remain turned to them. Axel merely cocked an eyebrow and smirked at him as he cupped his crotch with his free hand, thrust into it once, just enough to tease Demyx's "daring" gesture and one-up him with one of his own. Demyx grinned and waved him off, mouthing "fucker" before going back to setting up his burner, tilting his fire-hazard of a hair-style closer for a second before he straightened again and started a flame.

Axel laughed at the tease and, temporarily placated with some snark, turned to face his worksheet, still crisp and bright with a lack of pencil smudges. He stared at the questions for a little while, started to feel that niggling sense of incompetence creeping its way back into his psyche, and then all of a sudden Riku's worksheet swished across the countertop, a hand pushing it so it settled just to the right of his own. Axel looked up at Riku, words on the tip of his tongue, settling for a grin at the sight his friend made with bulky goggles in place over his eyes and a wry, "What about carrying my own weight?" Tapped his fingers against his paper, teeth bared in something that was almost defensive, _I could do this if I wanted to _.

"You focus on not making that explode, I'll take care of the boring stuff," Riku offered, rolling up his sleeves. "You set anything of mine on fire, it won't just be Roxas you'll have to worry about freezing your underwear." He waved at the directions on the board before crossing his arms at his chest. "_Burn, baby_," he mocked, mimicking Axel's drawl.

All defensive posturing was washed away by the recollection that Riku was actually his _friend_, that reassurance enough to remind him that it didn't really matter to him if he failed chemistry. There was no "thanks, man" or any other flowery term of endearment, just a lazy, "You look damn sexy with those bug eyes," and a flick to Riku's goggles before he cranked up the gas on the burner just enough to get Mr. Wallace to try to pull off a surreptitious maneuver that got him closer to that beloved fire extinguisher. Okay, so he'd probably still switch out for marine bio next tri, but hey, watching Wallace's shifty dance certainly helped the time pass.


	9. chemistry, part two

Sora had stopped locking the french doors years ago, because most days Roxas would approach his house at an angle, tumbling off the high, vine-laced privacy fence to strut across the back lawn like a prickly cat who'd meant to faceplant in the rhododendrons, thank you very much. Sora's mom would have him weeding all Sunday afternoon for that one. He had trouble actually worrying about forced garden labor, however; because like any red-blooded teenage boy, he could smell the chocolate cake from two blocks away. When he opened the left half of the double glass-paned doors, the scent wafted over him in delicious, rolling waves.

"Sora!"

"In the kitchen."

Roxas kicked off his shoes next to the piano, rhododendron twig stuck in the laces all the conviction Sora's mom would ever need, and padded through the house nose-first, imagining the smell like a smoky, beckoning hand the way the yummiest smells always were in cartoons. Come, follow me. Sugary, chocolaty deliciousness awaits.

What he found, however, approaching the breakfast bar, was not triple layers of sweet cake and fudgy icing piled high and decadent on a silver platter, but Sora pouting at a crumbly mess on a wooden cutting board, holding a spatula, globs of frosting clinging to the plastic.

Tragic.

"I don't _get it_." Sora grabbed the empty, slightly cake-mix-dusty box with his non-spatula-wielding hand, scanning the back for clues to this misfortune. His voice had taken on a tremulous quality that meant he wanted to cry but refused to do so because he was a man, dammit, and men didn't cry over tragedies of baking. "It's a goddamn cake mix, what did I do wrong?"

Roxas climbed onto a stool and leaned over to peer down at the cake fail, arms folded and propped on his elbows. There was a smear and smash of frosting in the center, where Sora had attempted to spread it only for the cake to implode, to crumble and merge with the frosting into a fudgy mess. It looked tasty, of course, but nothing like a cake. Roxas poked at the edge of the round with one finger, and it crumbled at his touch, falling apart into dry, chocolaty brown chunks. "You overmixed it."

Sora sputtered his indignance. "You can't overmix cake!"

"Yes you can."

"No you can't!" Sora slammed the box down on the counter but all it did was make a pathetic, hollow cardboard clap and wrinkle a bit at the edges.

"Cake flour has a lower protein content than all-purpose." Roxas sat back on his stool and folded his arms. "Cake flour forms a delicate gluten network when combined with water or other hydrating agent, and this network is what binds the cake together. However, if you mix it too much, the network becomes dense and stiff and therefore easier to break." He paused as a corner of the round broke off like a glacier sloughing off and falling into the sea, only in this case it just tumbled sadly aside on the cutting board. "Thus, your tragedy."

Sora stared at him, blue eyes narrow and unblinking for a long moment until stating, firmly, "You watch too damn much Alton Brown."

"Baking is a science."

"Well then." Sora lifted the spatula and held it out, straight up, in front of Roxas. One of the frosting globs slid down and landed on his thumb. "You make one."

Ten minutes later a white paper bag was exhaling flour all over the counter, Sora was pawing through his mother's pantry and Roxas was tossing two egg shells into the garbage disposal. "We need the sifter."

"I never use the sifter."

"We need the sifter."

"Mom never uses the sifter."

"The sifter assures that the salt and baking soda and cocoa are distributed evenly throughout the flour."

"Fine!" Sora huffed dramatically and pulled out the metal contraption, waving it in the air alongside the door. "Anything else?"

"Yeah." Roxas flipped on the electric mixer to low, working the spatula around the edges of the bowl as it turned, propelled by the twirling beaters. "Vinegar."

"What?"

"White vinegar."

The kitchen was silent aside from the whirring mixer until Roxas switched it off and looked over his shoulder to see if Sora had inexplicably vanished or the world had ended, only to find Sora staring at him from around the pantry door.

"Vinegar."

"Yes."

"_Vinegar_."

"Sora--"

"You're going to put _vinegar_ in _cake_."

"Vinegar reacts with baking soda, like the volcano models we made for the eighth grade science fair. This results in the rapid release of carbon dioxide, creating air bubbles, which in turn results in a lighter, fluffier texture." Roxas stuck a finger in his mouth where a bit of the butter and sugar mixture was clinging. "It also helps the cake retain its moisture."

"This is why I didn't take Chemistry with you," Sora intoned after another long pause.

"I hated Chemistry. Too much math, not enough explosions."

Ten more minutes and Sora was wrinkling his nose at the bottle of white vinegar, Roxas was humming along with the mixer and the bowl was full of brownish goo experiencing all kinds of happy chemical reactions. The kind that resulted in yummy cake. Roxas approved of this. "Stop scowling, Sora, you won't even be able to tell it's there."

"That's not the point," Sora huffed, chin in one hand and eyes narrowing at the bottle, like he expected it to spring to life and attack and any moment and necessitate the need for a defensive stance and a pillow. "I'll _know_ it's there."

"And you will realize how delicious it is and thank me."

"Sure. Thank you. _So much_." Sora giggled, and it was ominous enough that he should have looked up from his mixer and his brown goo. Should have made a break for it. "Roxas."

At the same time that Sora said his name, rolling hard on the R for impact, Roxas felt something land on his ear and a puff of white particles clouded his vision. He blinked, quickly turned his face away from the precious, precious cake batter and sneezed violently, then looked over at Sora, innocent blue eyes blinking as he leaned on the counter.

"You--you threw flour at me!"

"You put vinegar in my cake!"

Roxas reached for the spatula, pulled it out of the bowl and flicked a glob of cake batter goo at Sora. It spattered across his shirt and up over his face, mouth open in shock. They stood there like that for a moment, one dusted in flour and the other dotted in goo, staring at each other--until the tableau shattered, Roxas dove for the flour bag and Sora grabbed a handful of the cake-and-frosting tragedy off the cutting board.

Ten minutes later Axel wandered into the kitchen, because a few months earlier he'd learned about Roxas's private entrance through the french doors and started utilizing it whenever knocking on the front door didn't appear to produce any results. By this point both Roxas and Sora were fairly well covered in flour, cake batter, frosting and frosting mixed with overbeaten cake crumbs. The kitchen smelled mysteriously of vinegar and echoed with nonsensical shouting. Roxas was brandishing a spatula in one hand and a beater in the other; Sora had a hand towel and a sifter.

Axel stood behind the breakfast bar, and blinked. "What the fuck are you doing?"

They both jerked to face him, comically in the same instant. Roxas had a smudge of frosting trailing down his nose and his hair was almost white with flour. Sora looked like he'd dunked his head in the batter bowl. There was goo and frosting spattered all over the refrigerator, the cupboards and counters and flour strewn all over the floor. Sora's mom was going to kill them both.

"Nothing," Sora said, voice slow and demure at the same time that Roxas said, in all fact and fairness, "Making your birthday cake."

Axel's eyes traveled over them both from head to foot, salacious grin spreading across his face at the same time, tongue drawing across his lips. "Happy birthday to _me_."

Roxas scowled, and Sora frowned, and a truce was formed silently in the instant before Sora muttered, "Let's get him."

The ensuing chase and battle ended somewhere on the lawn near the rhododendrons, and Axel's hair smelled like chocolate for the next week.


	10. therapeutic

The joke was that he didn't have the guts to do drugs for real. Roxas preferred to think that he just knew better, that it was less damaging and incriminating to pretend, that he benefited from having a vivid imagination. Mostly, though, he just didn't have the guts, and on good weekends and bad weekends he took his allowance down to Joker's Wild and bought a box or two of pink-tipped candy cigarettes, and would sit and chain-smoke them on someone's back porch like the delinquent he pretended to be.

Tonight it was the deck behind Riku's house, and he was sitting on the steps in the square of light the kitchen window threw out, tilted to the side, cheek resting against the smooth, watersealed wood of a post, candy cigarette between his lips. Tonight was special; word circulated pretty fast among their friends, and the people who thought they were their friends, and coincidentally it happened that this was the weekend Riku's parents were out of town. Roxas wasn't sure if anyone had actually planned the party or if it had sprung up spontaneously, repressed teenagers showing up at Riku's door with six-packs of Pepsi and potato chips until the kitchen was an ocean of nonalcoholic drinks and junk food. Roxas wished someone had brought beer. If he was going to start drinking for real, he figured, tonight was the night to do it.

She broke up with him that morning. First thing, before he'd even got to his locker or finished rubbing the sleep out of his eyes her hand was on his elbow, and she pulled him over to the stairwell where the morning noise of the high school was thinnest. She dropped her hand and said quite simply and with a strange level of kindness, "I think we're done." And he just nodded, because he had absolutely no argument to the contrary. He had no idea why she'd asked him out to begin with, no idea why she stayed with him as long as she had, no idea why she even liked him and some days he was pretty sure she didn't, at least not much.

He just nodded, and that was the end of it.

His friends threw a party, which didn't really surprise him. To them she was a bitch, she was a cunt, she didn't deserve him and he could do better. Roxas thought sometimes that maybe that was true, but then couldn't figure out why, out of all the girls in the world who could have asked him out, she was the only one who ever had. He said yes because it was nice, being asked out. And it was nice, later on, having someone to be with. Someone of his own, someone special; it was intoxicating, sometimes, that feeling that maybe someone wanted him. That maybe he was attractive, likeable, charming enough to make a girl want to date him. It was nice. She even kissed him, sometimes, which was _really_ nice but the one time he'd tried to take things a bit further she shoved him away, gave him an apologetic pat on the shoulder and a soft, "No, I don't think so."

"But I didn't want..." He'd tried, because sometimes he wasn't sure they were communicating on the same level. "I just thought we could, you know, make out." He thought it would be nice, being that close to someone. Being wanted.

"I'm not into that," she said, tossing hair over her shoulder, leaning forward on the park bench under the starlight, and lit a real cigarette.

He just nodded, and that was the end of it, because he wanted her to be happy. He did all the things she wanted, gave her whatever she wanted because he wanted her to be happy. Because that's what you were supposed to do when you had someone special. Right?

The screen door creaked and crackled and fell shut with a metallic bang, clunking footsteps following afterward, hollow on the wood deck. Roxas straightened, pulled the sleeves of the white hoodie he was wearing until they covered everything but his fingers. Axel's feet appeared in his peripheral vision, no brand boots and faded jeans first until he dropped to sit in the space between Roxas and the opposite post, and promptly reached over to snatch the candy cigarette from Roxas's mouth. "Thanks, man."

Roxas made a noise halfway between a grunt and a chuckle that ultimately failed and faded into the night sky. He pulled the candy box out of a pocket, toyed with it between his fingers and listened to the sticks rattle around inside.

"So, how's it feel to be a free agent?" Axel grinned around his candy, twitching it up and down between his teeth.

Roxas shrugged, hunched a little. It felt like waking up after being asleep for months. It felt like finding a station in the middle of static on the radio. He was finally awake and aware, he could see everything, hear everything again. "Good."

The left arm of the hoodie was covered in ballpoint pen doodles, curving flowery shapes that stretched from the cuff and tapered out a couple inches from the elbow. Roxas stared at it, traced the lines with his eyes while Axel echoed him, twirled the cigarette between his fingers before replacing it in his mouth.

"S'good to hear." He was leaning forward, long arms resting on his knees, hands dangling. "So tell me, Roxas. Why are you wearing her hoodie?"

He shrugged. It was old and dingy, not even white anymore so much as extremely light gray. Roxas pulled another false cigarette out of the box, pushed it back into the left front pocket and flicked at the stick, positioning and repositioning it between his first two fingers. "She didn't want it back."

He felt the lecture coming before Axel even pulled in a breath of air to speak. It was the same thing any of them would say, the same thing everyone would say, words practical and rehearsed because they'd all been waiting for him to wake up. "She treated you like shit, man. She treated _us_ like shit, she strung you around the school like a fucking puppy on a leash. She made sure you did whatever she wanted you to and threw bitchfits when she didn't get her way. She was a fucking cunt, Roxas, and she didn't deserve you, and she sure as hell doesn't deserve you wearing her hoodie."

She used to smile at him, once in a while. She'd smile, arms around his shoulders, and press their foreheads together, and he thought he might be in love. Roxas curled his hands into fists, felt the candy stick break inside one of them. "I was a lousy boyfriend."

"The _fuck_--" Axel started, shifted like he wanted Roxas to look at him but Roxas just stared at his hands. His knuckles, the way his bones moved under them, listened to the way Axel's voice hitched when it rose. "She fucking _cheated_ on you, Rox."

Like a station coming in clear on the radio, after the words in the stairwell it was like he could hear again. Whispers of things, snatches of conversation, and all he could think was that it couldn't be right. She'd said it, "I'm not into that," and she'd been dating Roxas for months. She wasn't into it, so why would she be fucking someone else?

"I was a lousy boyfriend," Roxas said, and wondered why his voice trembled. Wondered which of these things was supposed to be therapy for that fucked up train of logic, anyway. The candy, the hoodie, or Axel.

He hunched down further, over his knees, folded his arms over his head and he thought Axel would probably leave him to that, let him be alone feeling sorry for himself over a girl who'd never wanted him. He didn't actually start crying until he felt Axel's hand on his back, arm sliding around his shoulders and that was enough to say _I get it, man. It's okay._ The sympathy was just too much.

If he could see from outside himself, Roxas figured he'd see Axel turning just enough to find Riku through the kitchen window, exchange a nod and then the blinds would close, Riku would guard the door to keep the party from spilling through and he'd be allowed to keep what shred of dignity he had left. Axel's hand on his shoulder, chin on his head, silence and crickets in Riku's backyard and no words would be said. Not now, and not any time later.


	11. blue raspberry

There happened to be this hellish week right in the middle of August when Axel had been packed off for visitation with his mother, when Sora was off on a family vacation, and when god and the universe had decided this was the perfect opportunity for a freak heat wave. The city existed in a wavering mirage, lawns died, thermometers burst, and Roxas existed in a ball of misery surrounded by every fan in the apartment cranked up to high. He tried everything from sticking his clothes in the freezer to lying in the sun on the back patio and waiting for the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness to finally overtake him, hoping he'd wake in an air-conditioned hospital being treated for heat stroke.

By the end of the day he was sunburned, had discovered that frozen shorts were not the greatest idea in regards to some of the more specific areas they covered, and he'd blown the fuse in the living room three times. Once the sun set and the world collectively let out a sigh of relief, Riku threw his front door open without ceremony, hair tied up in a way that was too girly for Roxas to have the energy to mock, and asked if he had a buck in change.

The buck was for Roxas to buy his own slurpee, as Riku was short that much after getting an oversized half-cherry half-lemon, a box of Whoppers and a bag of gummi worms. They went to ground on the cooling sidewalk in front of the 7 Eleven between the trash bin and the newspaper vendor, blue raspberry staining Roxas's mouth until Riku laughed and asked if he'd been blowing Smurfs.

It was funnier than it really should have been, the dizzy lethargy of a hot day combined with the rush of sugar to his system and he was just glad that Riku was cackling like an idiot, too, or he might have felt self-conscious, gas patrons hurrying in and out of the convenience store rolling their eyes at the noisy teenagers. They were probably high or something, damn kids, but it was really too hot to do anything about it. Let their parents worry.

Finally calming down enough to breathe properly, Roxas grabbed a handful of gummi worms, sputtered, "You'd know better than I would, man," and a second later realized that was probably the wrong thing to say. He did that a lot, strangely; there were some things he thought about backward and forward before he ever breathed a word of it, and then some things that just tumbled out of his mouth without warning, and all he could to was pause, stick a gummi worm between his teeth and pull until it stretched out twice its length and finally broke with a snap, and think, _damn, that was fucking stupid_.

There was a sort of shocked silence following the gummi worm snap, not really appalled or offended or even awkward, just a sort of _woah_ in response, and then Riku snorted and started laughing again. "You asshole."

After another minute of Riku laughing, trying to stop and failing whenever he looked at Roxas and his blue mouth, Roxas said, "I haven't said a word about your hair, Rik. Not one word."

"Fuck you," he started, breathed a few times, dug two fingers into the Whopper box. Then, "Think you can find another buck?"

"Doubtful." Roxas's slurpee pulled empty, the slush nearest the bottom solidifying around the straw. "Why?"

"The dollar theater is air conditioned." Riku gave up digging around and tilted his head back, dumping the last few candies into his open mouth. There were more than he expected, and he had to chew for a minute before he could continue from the side of his mouth. "Thought we could watch something with snow in it, remember what it's like to be cold."

"I have _March of the Penguins_ at home."

"That'll work."

Roxas figured, grabbing his slurpee and the gummi worms and crawling to his feet, that with all the windows open and all the fans running, the television and DVD player on too loud and the inevitable phone calls to their absent comrades that would ensue sometime halfway through the movie, that the fuse box was destined for three more visits. That he'd probably come up with a creative insult for Riku's girly ponytail around midnight, when he finally stopped sweating.


	12. fall leaves, part one

The front yard had been Axel's hideaway since he was a kid, where he could sprawl out on the grass, perpendicular to the chain-link fence, underneath the cherry tree. Nobody ever really bothered looking for him there, which was both amusing and annoying as hell since he was _right _out in plain sight. Maybe the closer he was to the ground, the less memorable he became.

In any case, he wasn't really complaining—the more insignificant Axel was, the more insignificant his _worries_ were. Heavy thoughts could seep out and sink into the earth, burden the bugs and the soil for a little while so that weight wouldn't bear down on him as much. Other times it was about the opportunity to give in and _feel_ what was bothering him, let that smirk melt off of his face, that glint in his eyes dull with a lack of control; he could admit that yes, maybe things were just a little bit fucked and he had no idea what to do about it. Then there were days like these when he couldn't go one way or the other with whatever was churning in his thoughts, roiling in his gut: the paranoia that someone would intrude refused to float away.

Axel sighed deep and closed his eyes, opening them slowly to take in the autumn scene above him: dark orange leaves, almost brown, shivering in the breeze. He was flat out on the lawn, comfortable with his legs spread in a narrow "V," one arm behind his head and the other hand next to the cordless phone, ready to answer if it rang—it was the damned phone that kept him from reaching that desired state of unawareness, reminded him that he still had a place in the world. He would've left it inside, but his dad was sleeping and if the ringing woke him up, he wouldn't have some time for himself anyway.

Of course, the alternative meant dealing with whoever was on the other end of the line, and the caller was usually someone Axel didn't want to talk to in the first place: telemarketers asking him if he had a copy of the _Times_, the fire department asking for donations he couldn't give, the high school calling to inform his dad that he missed one or more classes today. These were better than what he dreaded the most, his mom calling to ask how things were, checking in so she could tell him what to say to Dad about using _her_ credit card for groceries, that it was the only one she had right now. Then when Axel relayed the message, his dad would inform him that it was a _joint_ account, that Mom needed to monitor her spending anyway and stop buying CDs, the fact that this statement made Axel feel like shit since those CDs happened to be her birthday present to him notwithstanding—sweet fucking sixteenth birthday to him.

Axel let his eyes slip shut again when the angry buzzing in his head got too loud. He'd understood when Mom had left, he really had; his parents clearly hadn't been happy together anymore and all of the pretending had been driving everyone insane. But even after the separation, they'd continued to avoid talking to each other, just kept using him as a medium instead, and it was sucking out all of the air in his lungs, making his hands shake whenever he took a moment to be _still_. Sixteen and he was expected to be some kind of relationship guru—fucking ridiculous. But they were his _parents_, for fuck's sake. So confusing, so _pathetic_.

A lump formed in the back of his throat, and Axel inhaled deeply through his nose, releasing the breath in a toneless hum, voice gradually losing that strangled timbre until it was something a little more like usual. Then the phone rang.

"Fuck," Axel muttered, figuring the timing couldn't have possibly been better. He snatched up the phone and hit the "talk" button on the second ring, scowling up at the chilled blue sky overhead. "Hello?"

"Hey," the voice was lilting, familiar: Sora. "How're you?"

Axel let his eyes slip shut again, both thankful that it wasn't another salesman and slightly disappointed that he couldn't just hang up on one, experience the satisfaction of cutting _something_ out of his life. "'Bout the same. You?"

He could feel Sora frowning on the other end of the line, doing something or other around his house that required him to hold the phone between his ear and his shoulder. "Wanna help me blow up the world?"

Axel laughed, the sound coming out easier than it had all day. "Sounds good right about now." He shifted his position on the lawn, putting his weight just a little more on his right to adjust to the phone. "You got any particular reason?" He listened to Sora's rant, nodding even if the gesture couldn't be seen, expressing his disgust for his friend's horror stories about idiot kids in one of his classes and offering creative solutions until his hands stopped shaking, until that warmth wasn't prickling the backs of his eyes anymore.


	13. social event plus birthday

Roxas signed up for freshman sociology without realizing that it might require him to actually talk to people. There was some thought in his head about stratification and social order, but in his mind, anything with an -ology tacked onto the end meant books and labs and theorems, plenty of thinking and very little talking, unless he happened to have a lab partner and then it was limited to something about beakers or forceps.

Unfortunately, on the very first day of high school the teacher walked into the room, paired up everyone in class with partners they didn't know, and instructed them that they were embarking on a semester-long project to develop a sociological profile of the entire student body. They would be performing surveys and interviews and periodically reporting their findings. Roxas sat prim and silent in the front row, and dug his nails into the particleboard underside of his desk until it hurt.

His partner was a skinny redhead in a Led Zepplin t-shirt that Roxas had never seen before, or had seen before and just had no reason to find him memorable prior to then. His initial impression was that Axel was a slacker, that he'd end up doing all the work while Axel coasted by on his blood, sweat and tears, because Roxas didn't dare fail. He didn't dare, and he sat there, tried not to stare at the sharpie tattoo on Axel's wrist through the rest of class and wondered if maybe he could get away with doing some generalized interviews with Sora's friends and bullshitting his way through the rest.

Axel, though, surprised him at the end of class when the things he'd been scribbling in his notebook turned out to be a list of survey questions. He ripped out a page and handed it to Roxas, waggling it a bit in the air before Roxas, blinking, took it.

"Here, we'll go to the Back-to-School Mixer tonight, study all the jocks and preppies in their natural environment." Axel grinned, all white teeth and dangerously sparkling eyes, and disappeared out the door with the rest of the class before Roxas could even respond.

He arrived at the entrance to the gymnasium lobby that night in threadbare khakis and an unwrinkled blue flannel, which was the nicest thing he could find in his closet--with as a yellow legal pad on which he'd meticulously copied the survey questions page after page until his hand cramped. Composing what to say in his head over and over, trying to recite the words until they stuck. _Hi, would you mind participating in a brief survey?_ Maybe he should explain what it was for. Or maybe it was best to keep it simple.

Axel was already pacing on the sidewalk, rolling his shoulders like he was loosening up for a pole-vault, clipboard in one hand and another evil grin on his face when Roxas appeared around the corner. "My wingman. Ready to fly into the breach? Discover the social inclinations of the most social douches in the school?" Axel waggled his eyebrows suggestively, tapping the clipboard with his pen. "Go for the blackmail material, it'll score us and A _and_ come in handy in the future."

_Hi, would you mind participating in a brief survey?_ Roxas swallowed, recited the phrase a few more times. "Sure." No. God no, get me the fuck out of here.

Inside, rough blue carpet had been rolled over the gym floor to protect it from the tables of refreshments set out, lower bleachers pulled forward enough for sitting a few rows up, but most people present were coiled into knots at various places around the floor and the roar of their combined chatter was loud enough that Axel had to lean in to talk to him.

"This is what they refer to as a 'sea of humanity'," Axel explained, gesturing with his clipboard and rocked on his heels scanning the crowd with a growing delight, mouth curling up at the corners. "An hour in here and half our project is done. Not to mention we'll have enough dirt to throw all the football games for the next three seasons. So, here's our game plan--start out big and work our way down. If the most popular kids talk to us first, all the others will be jumping at the chance to do the same because they have this misplaced sense that imitating the big dogs will make them look good and raise their social standing. It's disgusting and fantastically predictable but it makes our job that much easier. So."

They'd wandered into the crowd while Axel talked, hands moving in illustration throughout his speech and deftly maneuvering them through the knots and moving crush of bodies. Now, Roxas noted, shrinking closer to the redhead on sheer instinct, they were standing in the center of the gym and Axel was grinning at two particular circles of students. "Jackpot."

Roxas looked from one group to the other, noting the sheer size of the circle of boys and the copious presence of letter jackets, and the twittering ring of females, none of whom he recognized but who carried the innate quality one associated with cheerleaders. _Hi, would you mind participating in a brief survey?_ He recited, and was about to ask Axel what they were going to do when the guy in question clapped him sharply on the back.

"Okay, I've got the macho macho man over here first of all. You go take care of the princess." Axel gestured to who appeared to be the central force of the knot of girls, a willowy brunette fashionably dressed (or so he supposed), and Axel was already moving away towards the jocks. "Meet back here in ten, unless you can get her entire harem to respond, okay?"

And then Axel was gone, and Roxas was alone in the middle of the crowded gym, goosebumps prickling all over his body and throat closing around itself, stomach churning, legal pad clutched to his chest and all he could think was, _Hi, would you mind participating in a brief survey?_.

Roxas had seen something once, a movie or an episode of the Twilight Zone, about the last man on Earth. The man was supposed to be psychologically traumatized by the absence of his fellow human beings, by having no one present to socialize with. Roxas envied him.

Logically, there were things that he understood. Logically, he knew that there was nothing to be afraid of, but after two steps forward Roxas had to stop, close his eyes and remind himself to breathe. Recite his line a few more times. Axel had already wormed his way into the circle of jocks and was discussing something with grand gestures that may or may not have had anything to do with the survey, but it had most of them nodding, some of them shrugging, and then after a protracted moment, all of them laughing at whatever Axel was grinning about. His attention slid to the side just at that moment, noticing Roxas still standing there, just a few paces from where he'd left him, and Axel frowned just a little, blinked in confusion until the leader, the football captain or whatever other important character the guy happened to be, slapped him on the shoulder and resumed their conversation.

Roxas swallowed again and wondered if he waited long enough that Axel would decide to do the talking to the girls himself. He was obviously charming and sociable if he could have an entire circle of jocks fully engaged and entertained in under a minute. Roxas had to remind himself repeatedly of the one line he needed to say.

_Hi, would you mind participating in a brief survey?_

He didn't want to be a burden, though. He'd been afraid Axel would be his burden; he would have resented that and he didn't want Axel to resent him in the same way, for the same reasons. In a partner project it was only fair for both partners to take on an equal share of the work. It was only fair for Roxas to do his part. All he had to do was take a few more steps, clear his throat a little to get the girl's attention, and say, _Hi, would you mind participating in a brief survey?_

Roxas took two steps, and then two more, and when he was at the point where his senses were overwhelmed by the smell of bubblegum and perfume, he cleared his throat and muttered a weak, "Sorry," and then, when no response was forthcoming and his knees started shaking, he tried a bit louder, "Excuse me." His voice sounded like a frog croaking. _Hi, would you mind participating in a brief survey?_

The girl turned around, wide doe eyes staring back at him and Roxas reminded himself that it was polite to look at someone while he spoke to them, opened his mouth, and all his language faculties promptly left him.

"Yeah?" The girl was smiling a little wryly, attention darting back to her collective, who were peering at him and whispering to each other.

"Um." Roxas said, voice cracking around the lump in his throat. "Um. Can you... um. Do you... have a minute? Uh. For... a survey. I mean." He held the legal pad up a little higher, so it almost covered his face. "Um. Would you mind?"

The girl stared, smile disappearing and lips pursing, for a long, cautious moment, before she uttered in a shocked bout of honesty, "Holy shit, you can talk?"

The other girls made noises behind her, nervous laughter and higher whispers, and fortunately Axel showed up at that precise moment because Roxas couldn't look at anything but the spine of his legal pad anymore. He felt sick. He felt like his insides were falling apart.

Axel greeted the assembly of girls with something charming around a grin that might have been _Evening, ladies_, but Roxas couldn't hear much, either. How about that. They seriously thought he was deaf or mute or something. What else did people think about him? What other things had they decided without his knowledge? What were they whispering to each other, giggling about?

Roxas hung back while Axel explained the survey to the girls, and a few minutes later Roxas found himself haltingly asking the battery of questions to a spandex-clad blonde while she snapped gum and twirled her hair on one finger. He scribbled the answers out quickly, thanked her without looking up from the paper, and spent the rest of the evening following Axel's lead, shadowing him, writing on the legal pad and later on Axel's clipboard while the redhead talked.

It took an hour and a half, and ended with Roxas going to sit on the bleachers because Axel got caught up in a conversation about a horror flick series with one of the lesser honor roll preps. Axel was an endless fountain of words, language spilling out of him like he was overflowing with it, a cup with the faucet left running. Roxas sat on the bleachers and stared at his pile of surveys and hoped no one noticed him, because if no one noticed him he wouldn't have to think of something to say.

Axel disengaged himself from conversation eventually and landed sprawled out on the bleachers at Roxas's side, letting out a satisfied sigh. Roxas said nothing for a moment before cautiously observing, "That was more than an hour."

"I made that estimate based on the assumption that we would split up." Axel shifted on his elbows, leaned against the row behind them.

"I'm sorry." Roxas swallowed again, staring at his knees. _Hi, would you mind participating in a brief survey?_ That was all he had to say. Nine stupid words, that was all. "I'll do all the rest of the work, okay? So we'll be even."

"Wha'd'you mean, _even_?" Axel sat up abruptly, then just as suddenly dismissed the entire conversation and climbed to his feet. "You know the TCBY on the corner?"

Roxas blinked, tilting his head back, but Axel was a silhouette against the harsh, caged gym lights. "Yeah."

"Come on." Axel started walking, not fast, just hopping down the bleachers and moving towards the door with the lazy expectation that Roxas would follow, hands in his pockets, peering back over his shoulder once.

"I don't," Roxas started, hurrying to catch up, juggling the legal pad and clipboard and pens in his hands. "I'm um. Broke."

"So'm I." Axel paused, took his stuff back, pushed the pen in his pocket and tucked the clipboard under his arm, and gave Roxas another dangerous grin without explaining a damn thing. "Let's go."

Roxas couldn't distill what moved him to follow Axel, to do what he said, follow his lead--trust him, even. He should have been hurrying home before it got any later, before his parents could scold him for walking home through the ghetto of government subsidized housing in the dark, but he went with Axel instead. The TCBY cashier, it turned out, was someone Axel knew, and between an employee discount, triple coupons and some questionable mathematics, Axel paid a grand total of two quarters for two heaping dishes of chocolate fro-yo with sprinkles. Roxas spent a few uncomfortable minutes staring at his, plastic spoon clutched in one hand, trying to come up with a way to say thank you that sounded as sincere as he meant it to be.

And then Axel pulled a single blue and white candle out of his pocket and stuck it in the peak of his ice cream. "Happy birthday to me."

Roxas stared at the candle, and then cautiously tilted his head enough to stare at Axel, instead. "It's your birthday?"

"Yep." He busied himself centering the little cardboard cup in front of him in a regal fasion, finding just the right angle.

"Shouldn't you be... celebrating with someone?" Roxas quelled the initial desire to ask how old he was, because it was obvious enough, both of them being freshman, and if it was some age other than that the question would just lead to further, more awkward questions. Roxas tried to avoid awkward lines of inquiry; talking was awkward enough in and of itself.

"Like who?"

"Like." Roxas paused, thinking about his last birthday. Pizza dinner, a present in the mail from his grandma, Dad promising something next week after he got paid that he would conveniently forget about until Roxas did, too. Or, more specifically, until Roxas gave up on asking for it. He wondered if Axel even got that much, if he was buying his own discount fro-yo for his birthday. "Your friends?"

"What friends?"

Axel didn't pose the question with any level of bitterness or sarcasm. It was a flat, flawlessly delivered statement of fact, punctuated by him drawing a red Bic lighter from his pocket and deftly flicking it on, flame dancing while he lit the candle, the cashier conveniently not noticing. Roxas watched it flicker, and dared to watch the way Axel pondered it.

"What should I wish for?" Axel stared across the table and Roxas realized that his eyes were green. The candle made a little orange flicker of light reflect right in the center of his pupils. Roxas stared back, and then slowly, unexpectedly, smiled just a little.

_Hi, would you mind recognizing a kindred soul?_

Axel blew out the candle.


	14. saving the princess

Life had a way of shitting on all of them simultaneously. It didn't even really matter what specifically was going on, because they'd all end up in the same place: exhausted, defeated. It didn't really seem fair, the way they were constantly struggling to stay afloat, considering all of the ignorant dumbfucks out there who had enough peace of mind to continue to _be_ ignorant dumbfucks; it was _almost_ enough to make Axel want to get stupid himself. Almost. Thank god for the handful of friends he had who weren't idiots, was all he was saying.

Speaking of friends who weren't idiots… Axel padded down the stairs to Riku's basement, not keeping quiet for any particular reason other than habit after years of moving as soundlessly as possible at home to avoid any tension that might have existed between himself and his dad—he had a way of unintentionally sneaking up on people just as much as he _deliberately_ pounced. Pretty sure that Riku especially didn't need someone suddenly appearing at his shoulder at the moment, Axel made sure his shoulder brushed against the wall on his way in, cleared his throat unnecessarily.

Riku was angled at a half-slump on the couch, elbow braced against the arm so he could list to the side with his head tilted against the back of the furniture. He half-turned, profile just visible enough to view who was in his peripheral. "Hey," he said softly, jerking his head in the brief up-and-down nod that signified a wave between friends who knew each other well enough to not have to offer something to drink, motion for the other to take a seat.

Axel nodded in return, choosing to plant his elbows to the side of Riku's head and lean over against the back of the couch. He didn't ask how he was, since he knew: shitty, just like he felt. Instead, he rested his chin on his arms, cocked his head so he could look sidelong at his friend. Riku's eyes were dull, not-quite-fixed on the ceiling as he picked at the seam on the knee of his jeans. He didn't ask if he wanted to talk about it, since Riku had already vented on the phone and that was the reason Axel was here now. Riku didn't talk more about it, because he'd said everything he needed to say and dwelling on it would just make it bigger, suck more of the air out of the room.

While they both slumped there not watching the TV, a bright flash of pink and yellow caught Axel's eye, and he glanced over to the corner of the room, taking in a small fleece blanket. Rather than ponder on what a pink baby blanket was doing in what was essentially Riku's living space (okay, so he did for a second), Axel's head rolled on his neck so he was upright again, considering the merits of the memories of blanket forts when he was a kid and schemes toward employing their use now. Then the simple decision that guys weren't supposed to hug popped into his head, the deal-breaker, and he ambled over to the shelving unit up against the far wall, grabbed the soft blanket and walked back to the couch.

The blanket wasn't even close to being big enough to drape over a couple of chairs, so instead Axel dropped down onto the couch next to Riku, picked up the blanket by two of the long corners, and threw it over both of their heads. "Fortress of Solitude," he announced, smirking at the thought of Riku's perfect hair sticking to the fleece with static electricity. "Either that or I'm here to rescue the Princess."

"Fuck you," Riku muttered, but his frown wasn't as intense as it had been before, eyes a little softer and lips less upside-down: Princess saved.


	15. lemons

The school bathroom was empty; it was third hour and everyone was either in class or in the office. There wasn't much hustle and bustle in the morning periods. After lunch, kids got antsy and began to linger longer than they needed to in the restrooms, rummage in the backs of their minds for an adequate enough excuse to head to the library, the nurse's, the counselor's office. But this was not after lunch--this was third period.

It was mid-November and Thanksgiving break was visible on the horizon. The _holiday_ feeling had settled over people, and outside, the weather was shitty. Gray, wet, icky. Snow was in the forecast but it would probably just be an icy slush, which would make the little city look and feel even more miserable as Thanksgiving and Christmas approached faster than the kids could write wishlists and make turkeys out of the outline of their hand and construction paper.

Around this time, there were two different things that happened to people (generally). Some people's moods soared with the good cheer and the kindness, the love, the _magic_ radiating from everyone's smiles and the shop windows, the annual Christmas programs that brought nostalgia and warmth, the songs that triggered a number of memories of holidays passed. And some people's moods hit a sharp descent, drooping, fading, wilting, because not everyone could afford what they wanted for Christmas gifts _and_ the heating bill, and some people didn't have family to make new memories with, and some people had hit the point where they realized there was a deep line--a crevice, really--drawn between the days of innocence and the days of adulthood, so all this _magic_ in the air was almost _mockery_. Holidays were bittersweet for all--although some refused to acknowledge it, and some tried their best not to be affected by it.

Riku was one of the latter few, trying his damndest not to let the obvious changes and cruelties of life get to him. Sometimes he wished he was like Sora, because Sora could find something to be happy about in any situation--albeit, Sora also had a breaking point, but he took longer than Riku to reach it. He wished he could be like that, but then he also didn't, because he'd rather be aware of his family's current struggle with money than intentionally ignore it, and he'd rather accept the fact that his father was too cheap to keep up cherished traditions than pretend everything was the same way it was a year or two ago.

But everyone had their problems, so it wasn't like being the kind of person who got melancholic around holidays was any excuse. After all, Sora could act like everything was okay all he wanted, but all of them knew about his mom's health problems, and her long hours at work, and her tumultuous relationshp with her live-in boyfriend. And all of them knew how Roxas was having a bit of trouble with school lately, just as they knew about his recent "move" from dad's house to friend's house, and the shameful _move back_ once the cops got involved, but this time to his mom's--and all of them were well aware of Axel's shitty job, his empty cupboards, the fact that his house was still used as a social meeting place despite that, his dad's back. Then there was Kairi's drama at home, all the girls at school who made her life a living hell; and Larxene, who was kind of floating between staying young and growing up; and Demyx, in and out of ISS for stupid reasons. And so many other friends, dealt unfortunate hands at an unfortunate time. Why, Riku wondered, did the shit always have to hit the fan around Christmas? Was this God's way of demonstrating His power when _Christmas miracles_ occurred? If it was, where the fuck had the miracles been for all of them the past few years?

It was third hour and the bathroom was empty. It smelled like citrus-scented cleaners, running water and old pipes. The room was large, with a little section near the door for mirrors and sinks, and a corner to turn before one reached the stalls and urinals. A broad window let in a massive pool of light, filling the room and adding to the overheads, bouncing off the white walls and tile. It was clean, well-kept.

Of course, it was well-kept except for the occasional Sharpie graffiti on the walls, on the cubicles, once even on the mirrors. And as the light flowed in from the broad window and minutes ticked by on a clock somewhere outside of the bathroom, more Sharpie graffiti was being added to the tile wall in the farthest stall from the sinks, the smell of the marker cutting through the cleaning chemicals and permeating the air.

If someone had walked in then, walked to the furthermost bathroom stall and paused at the sound of marker scritching against plaster--if someone had paused to listen, tipped their head to peer through the crack in the door, ducked down to look for a pair of feet, they would have caught an alarming couple of glimpses: through the crack in the door, a flash of a head so white blond it was essentially silver, the back of a denim jacket with the hood of the sweatshirt beneath flopped out of the collar; beneath the door, legs crossed Indian style and tattered jeans, dirty Converse, in the corner of the stall an abandoned backpack and a Trig book with a calculator and a can of TAG sitting on top. And still, the _scritch scritch scritch_ of marker against plaster, the strong smell of Sharpie.

But as it was, the bathroom was empty. Riku was usually lucky like that.

The silence continued, the _scritch scritch scritch_ enough to replace the ticking of a clock to measure how much time was passing. Riku really appreciated how he wasn't on the roster for his third hour class; take that, guidance counselors. That's what happens when you brush Riku off and adjust his schedule so much, only to stick him in a remedial _study skills_ class. Study _this_.

The bathroom door opened, out past the sinks. Riku jerked the marker away from the wall, shoved the cap on again and slid it into his back pocket, grabbed the TAG and gave himself a quick spritz. Stood up, began gathering his things.

The sound of excretion, piss tinkling into the urinal. And then: "You know, Riku, you can spray that all you want. It still smells like a bathroom in here, plus a Sharpie, plus TAG. You're not covering up much."

Riku froze, gawked at his Trig book; he pivoted sharply, unlatched the stall door and opened it a few inches. He had the scowl already on his face as he peeked out into the rest of the bathroom, TAG in one hand and backpack slipping off the shoulder he'd sloppily hooked it upon. "That's not true," he spat, once he'd registered the messy punk-red above the urinal as the back of Axel's head.

Axel turned slightly, cast a glance over his shoulder. "Excuse me," he said, and motioned with one hand. "I'm peeing here. A little privacy."

Riku didn't budge. Axel sighed, turned away again. For a moment the bathroom was completely silent, and then he hissed, "Okay, look, I can't pee when you're staring at me."

The boy in the bathroom stall jumped, fumbled with the door, latched it again. "Sorry," he mumbled, rolling the TAG in his palms. He shifted, lowering his backpack to the floor as he propped himself against the wall of the toilet cubicle. Something tugged at his mind, something more urgent than his embarrassment-- There was something wrong. Something very wrong here. But what?

"How's your day going so far?" Riku asked, and he heard Axel sigh again, heard his fly zip, the urinal flush. Riku leaned over, unlatching the stall door. It creaked as it slowly drifted open by itself, stopping after about a foot. The sound of rushing water as Axel turned on a sink.

"Fine, I guess," he said. His voice echoed very faintly. Riku frowned down at the TAG. _Something_ was _wrong_. Very wrong.

Oh.

Of course. Of course, why hadn't he noticed right away? He'd been staring at Axel trying to pee, and Axel hadn't even cracked a perverted comment. Not one. Not _I know I must be pretty big, and you must be pretty jealous, but please stop staring_. Not _Look, if you're in the closet just say so_ (which would have been a strange one anyway, because all of his friends knew about him and Sora). Not even _Riku, you're staring at me while I pee, is there something you want to tell me?_

"What's wrong?" Riku asked, and his voice cut through the silence sharper than the running water, the paper towel dispenser.

"I lost my job," Axel replied, and while Riku's voice had been brisk and demanding, Axel's was fragile. Thin and uncertain, not Axel at all. Riku clicked the top of his TAG can back and forth, then pushed away from the side of the stall and crouched down, unzipping his backpack, slipping the body spray into it and shifting across the floor to get his book and calculator.

"Oh," was all he could come up with.

"Yeah." Axel sounded closer. There was a small _thud_ and a rattle of latches as he leaned against the outer wall of the bathroom stalls. Riku paused, peering at his calculator, then dropped it into his backpack and zipped it up again. "The poor bastard was calling people, trying to recruit a new intern while I was sitting _right there_. So, I mean, I haven't lost it yet, I'm pretty much just waiting for the phone call where he says, 'Sorry, Ax, you were great, kid, but... I found someone who can make all the hours, who won't get sick so much, who won't not be able to come in because they don't have the gas money. Good luck, though. Dream big.'"

Riku nodded sympathetically, and then realized that Axel couldn't see the gesture--albeit, he was sure the notion would be felt. He tossed a few shocks of hair out of his eyes and leaned forward, pulling the door to his stall open all the way, peering around the corner of it at Axel. Axel stared back, arms crossed. There were bags beneath his eyes. The tattoos on his face seemed to pop out more than they should have, as if his skin were paler than normal. Riku's eyes flickered downwards; Axel's reading glasses were folded on the collar of his shirt. He only used them when he was stressed, just so that he wouldn't add on to the headache he already had. Conclusion: he was incredibly bummed. _Incredibly_.

"I'm sorry," Riku murmured. Briefly, he thought back to the night about a week ago, when Axel had stopped by and made the blanket fort. He wanted to smile but suddenly he was too sheepish to, too inspired to; he stepped forward, slammed the stall door open all the way and held it there, motioned for Axel to come into the stall with him.

"Look what I did," Riku urged, with a sweeping motion towards the plaster of the bathroom wall. He admired it himself for a moment, then glanced back at Axel. The red-haired boy stood with his hands on his hips, having moved into the stall once he realized what he was looking at was on the wall. His brows risen, the clouds in his eyes slowly began to dissipate and his dry amusement took their place; his eyes were not as bright as usual, but they were bright enough.

On the bathroom wall, there were four spikey-headed stick figures (three were obvious and the other was just a mess of lines). They all had triumphant grins on their faces, and behind them there was a big building that looked something like a factory, if one really stretched the imagination. The building was engulfed in flames, and scrawled through its middle was its title: Lemon Factory.

"...I get it," Axel said after a long moment of observation, and then he snickered meekly, tongue between his teeth. "Creative, Riku. Really makes you think. 'When life gives you lemons...' Right?"

"Right." Riku drummed his fingertips on the door of the bathroom stall, suppressing an abashed smile. "Cheered you up?"

"Sure," Axel said, nodding, and he pressed his knuckles to his chin in contemplation. "There's just one thing."

Riku looked to the Sharpie drawing, frowning, searching it over for any mistake he'd made. But nope, it was all there. "What?"

Axel reached out, patting Riku on the back, a few hard thumps just between his shoulder blades. "What makes you think somebody won't recognize those people are supposed to be _us_?"

Riku paused, stared, thought this over for a moment. His free hand fumbled with the zipper on his sweatshirt. "Well, I guess it won't be as bad, because at first I was going to draw the _school_ on fire, but--"

"Oh my God," Axel said, and snorted to himself as he pivoted out of the bathroom stall, shook his head on his way to the door. Riku blinked after him at first, then had to chuckle at himself in turn, because seriously, could he get any more stupid. He grabbed his backpack and hurried to follow.

At lunch time, they all met on the same staircase they did every day, pooling together what they'd brought in paper sacks, what one of them had bought at the counter, divying it up equally. Sora had Coke and a salami sandwich, a bag of Lays; Roxas had been the one designated to get cafeteria food and had come back with a tray of chicken tenders, noodles, fruit salad and a chocolate milk; Axel brought Nutella as always; eventually Kairi joined, with Naminé and Xion beside her, and their group bounty was a classic peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, a Hot Pocket, a pickle, a pudding and a bag of dried bananas; then there was Demyx and his chocolate-covered pretzels, Larxene with some spaghetti-o's in a plastic container. And once he got there, Riku had a turkey sandwich all the amenities and enough granola bars to go around.

"Where were you?" Sora asked, frowning in genuine concern, something that looked private in his eyes but was public on the rest of his face, something all of them knew about and simply rolled their eyes the other way about, because ew, just get a room already, but they all supported it. After all, for the majority of them, casting disdain towards it would be incredibly hypocritical, and being snobbish about things like that was generally _unaccepted_ by the others in the group.

"The office," Riku murmured, sagging down to sit on the step beside Sora. Up the staircase, the cafeteria roared with the voices and sounds of lunchtime. Sora regarded Riku with sharp eyes, mouth twisting into a stern line.

But Roxas took up the task of asking. "Why?" he chirped, crunching on a few dried bananas he'd dug from Xion's plastic bag.

Riku shrugged roughly, paper sack crackling as he pulled it open, tossed the sandwich and granola bars onto the step for Demyx to split up evenly for those who wanted some. "I tagged the bathroom wall earlier--"

Axel snorted. "_Tagged_," he echoed, as if he didn't agree, licking some Nutella off his fingertip. Riku cut a sharp glance in his direction; the others merely looked over curiously, then away again.

"Anyway, they figured it was me after that incident in the south wing bathroom. You know, the...explicit stuff."

"Oh, yeah!" Kairi cried, nudged Demyx with the toe of her shoe to remind him they'd both particularly admired that tagging. "That was the _best_, though!"

Sora regarded her darkly from below his lashes, silent but getting his point across. Kairi blew a kiss at him in rebellion, but quickly went back to eating lunch without having an opinion.

Riku sighed, accepting the half of a sandwich Roxas held out for him. He propped his cheek in his palm, glancing at Sora briefly before going on again. "They figured out it was me this time, too, so to make a long story short, this is my second warning and I have a week's worth of detention in the _principal's_ office, not in the classroom."

"Oh, shit," Larxene commented, and this drew a couple of agreeing murmurs, agreeing giggles from others in the group, because everyone knew the difference between detention in the principal's office and detention in room D47.

"I wonder how they figured it out so fast," Axel pondered, tipping his head back and peering up at the ceiling with a mockingly inquisitive look on his face. After a moment, he glanced to the side, and sure enough, that intensity burning into him was Riku attempting to glare straight through his skull and melt his brain, but he was failing. Axel broke into a crooked grin in return--but it was an honest one, and his eyes were bright with glee.

Riku's glare faltered, just a bit. Softened. Understanding passed through his eyes, but abruptly the understanding went straight to the back of his head for another time because Sora's palm smacked into his back and knocked the wind out of him, and he had to deal with Sora's obvious frustration at this news before he could sit and think about how when life gave you lemons, you just had to set the lemon factory on fire.


	16. missing

Years later, it was impossible for Roxas to explain what had happened. Maybe he'd said the wrong thing at the wrong time, or the right thing at the wrong time, or maybe he hadn't said anything at all. Maybe they'd argued about something, or got into an all-out fight, words unmeant and fists flying. Maybe it was something else entirely and not his fault at all. But something had happened, whatever he couldn't remember or had never known to begin with, and sometime in the middle of Sophomore year, Axel simply stopped being around.

It was ridiculous, how easy and almost effortless he made it. Roxas sometimes caught glimpses of him in the hallways, a profile between passing students, a flash of red hair, a sharpie-scrawled hand grabbing a book. Sometimes he caught sight of Axel's heels disappearing through his front door, but when he ran up to the house to knock, no one answered. Sometimes Roxas thought he heard the edge of his voice from a distance, but when he turned to look there was no one there, and he figured it was his imagination. It was impressive and almost scary, how proficient Axel was at not being present.

At the same time that he wasn't present, there was an anomaly of spacetime, a gaping void that was constantly at Roxas's side. It cut off his thoughts, interrupted jokes, punctuated conversations or distracted him entirely. It sat on the couch beside him on Friday nights, washed in the glare from the TV screen, eerily silent. It made sounds like closing doors and busy signals and negative sounds like phones and doorbells that never rang. Roxas would stare at it and say something like, "I miss you," but it never said anything back.

Roxas started to go and stand in front of Axel's lawn once in a while, for all the good it might do. He had the sense just from the conspicuous absence and from the raised voices the house emitted from time to time that something was not okay, that whatever was not okay might tip to outright bad at any given point in time, and all he could really do was stand in front of the lawn being completely powerless. It was one of the worst feelings in the world, not being able to do anything, not being able to fix whatever was wrong. All he could do was stand there where Axel could see him, if he looked out the window. All he could do was be there in case someone opened the door.


	17. morning

In the corner of his mind that wasn't asleep, Roxas was aware that it was morning; there was a strip of light glittering between the ruffled blue curtains, there was a kitten curled up on the comforter in the warm spot behind his bent knees, and a corner of his mind was awake because the clock radio had gone off for a bare second just a moment ago. The other side of the bed was wiggling in time with Axel's soft mutters, something about clean things and not clean things, and whether he'd put a particular clean thing in one place or another. Roxas absorbed this, still mostly asleep, and decided that it didn't warrant waking; it was still early, and with Axel leaving the bed he could cocoon himself in the blankets and continue sleeping. His brain approved of this and let go of the thread of reality, letting him drift back off into dreamland with only the lingering impression of the bed shifting as Axel stood up, then wiggling as he made his way around it; the little room only left a foot of space or so around the circumference of a double-bed. Behind his knees, the kitten stretched, tiny claws pulling at the comforter.

_CRASH!_

"Shallots!" Axel cursed, then proceeded to wonder in quiet mutters to himself why he'd used that as a curse word and what shallots had ever done to deserve being cursed with, something rattling around as he spoke. Roxas pushed himself up on one elbow, squinting at the blue blur of the room over the comforter. His mouth didn't really feel like talking, but he managed to say something that approximated "Whthfuckryoudoing" before it gave out entirely.

"I'm trying to go to work," Axel hissed, replacing something on the shelf above him before continuing to wiggle his way around the room.

Roxas frowned, which surprisingly didn't take much effort this early in the morning, when he'd been pleasantly asleep a second before. "It sounds painful."

"I knocked your phone off the shelf. Go back to sleep." Axel finally worked his way into the space by the door, stumbling slightly at the unexpected ability to move. The kitten took this opportunity to let out an irritable meow. Axel glared at it.

Roxas huffed, dropping back onto the bed and letting the comforter fall over his face, grumbling something unintelligible even to him. He remained there until he felt the mattress sink down on either side of his shoulders, the blankets carefully folded away from his face. He continued frowning but cracked open his eyes anyway, grudgingly noting how the morning sunlight from the window behind him gave Axel a red and gold halo. He wanted to say something like, 'You'd better bring me home some oreos as recompense for waking me up at six AM, fucker,' but all that actually came out of his mouth was a gruff, mumbled, "Oreos." Axel smiled.

The kitten, disrupted from its place, crawled over Roxas's knees and resettled in the crook of his hip. Roxas himself slid back into sleep almost as soon as he closed his eyes, but he was pretty sure he'd felt the warm press of lips against the space of skin between his eyebrows, just before the extra weight on the bed disappeared.


	18. territorial pissings

Axel met Riku first. Well, it wasn't so much a meeting as it was a likeminded "stay away from me" attitude and a penchant for the back corners of the classroom; the last row of second period language arts had never looked so foreboding. There were a few brave souls who dared sit between them but nobody attempted conversation, since Axel had established his social aversion early on in elementary school and Riku had kept pretty much to himself since first moving into the district in seventh grade. Between the disgusted glares Axel and Riku would shoot at any who dared to whisper, all was typically silent and, if possible, empty.

Second period was lunchtime, something Axel wasn't particularly fond of with his usual lack of money to spend and people to talk to since Larxene had fourth lunch and Demyx ate in the band room; sometimes he'd slip in and join him and his friends, but most of the time he preferred a half hour of alone time and chose to slip into the upstairs bathroom instead. There were no doors, just a wrap-around wall, an indent to the left for urinals, and two stalls to the right—no chance of getting away with a smoke break. But Axel could sit up on the counter with his back to the long mirror and sneer at anyone who thought they might use his bathroom while he was there.

Then one day he ambled into the bathroom as his routine warranted and was annoyed to discover that someone was already there. Some_ones_, that is, but they were still intruding on his personal time and he felt inclined to take care of the problem. Then he realized that one of the someones was Riku, and some dick—what was his name? Whatever, it didn't matter—was trying to back him up to the far wall. He was calling Riku a fag, which wasn't anything surprising because really, that was the only word these assholes seemed to know these days, but the fringe of Riku's bangs was hiding bored fury and Axel's eyebrows rose, his interest piqued. Before now, Riku had been someone Axel could understand but didn't really want to have anything to do with—his drama was enough, right? But right now there was a rare pull in his chest dragging him toward Riku, who was _still_ known as "The New Guy" after a year of moving in, and that pull had never steered him wrong before.

Instead of announcing his presence, Axel shuffled across the bathroom until he was behind Nameless Dickhead #37, quiet and unobtrusive, his only give the brief flicker of Riku's eyes as he glanced at the new edition to the bathroom before returning his gaze to the freshman who was now jabbing his finger at some scribble on the metal of the inside of one of the stalls. Upon closer inspection, the scribble was a set of tally marks, and Axel could make out "Sora's mine." One eyebrow proceeded to rise higher than the other, his interest now officially invested in this bathroom drama. "Hey there, Sweet," he drawled, Dickhead's last name finally coming to him upon necessity. "Whatcha got here?"

Sweet half-turned, and when he saw who was behind him, pivoted until he could keep both Axel and Riku in his line of sight—both boys had built up a reputation for not having a problem with fighting, and Axel had long maintained a respected notoriety for refusing to _lose_ any fight he threw himself into. "This fag ruined the stall," Sweet sneered, jabbing again at the message on the wall.

Axel indulged him with another perusal of the tally, snorted. "What, because permanent marker won't come off? What about that chick's phone number _scratched_ into the paint?" Sweet started sputtering off about how Riku was a fag, the expected lack of reasoning pouring out of his mouth like vomit and making Axel's nose twitch with the stink. He smirked, surreptitiously curled the fingers of his right hand, not quite a fist but ready and waiting if he needed one. "You're right, someone should do something about that mess; I think you've already caught the gay, coming in here and backing Riku into the stall like this."

More sputtering from Dickhead, this time even more incoherent from mounting anger. Axel cocked his head to the side, shook some rogue hair from his face. "Come on, Sweet, I _know_ you can do better than this guy, pretty boy quarterback like you? I would've thought Ramsey was more your type, the way you two are always grunting over French fries—" Axel moved back just in time, dodging a blind punch and grabbing Sweet's wrist to yank him forward and grip the base of his skull. One quick thump of Sweet's head against the stall and Axel let him go, watched him stagger and clutch his forehead with both hands.

Riku had moved to stand by his side, both wearing ripped up hoodies and keeping their backpacks with them because only chumps left their stuff in the classroom; they had to look like they were in some kind of gang or something, and Axel didn't bother to hold back an amused smirk. Sweet stopped swearing after a few seconds and whirled around to face them, snapped up straight and tried to look unbreakable. His mouth opened to issue another slur, another threat, and Axel cut him off, voice soft and laced with feigned disinterest. "Sweet. I hear Zexion already did a number on you with a kick and a secondhand Spanish book for 'misplacing' his towel in the locker room. Now think about us here, with two backpacks _full_ of textbooks and all of our clothes present and accounted for."

Sweet's mouth snapped shut, his hands finding his pants pockets. Axel snorted, waved a hand in dismissal, and after a second or two of spiteful glaring and the scuff of a tennis shoe against the floor, Sweet turned and shuffled out of the bathroom. "Oh, Sweet," Axel called out, tone offhand, "anyone else starts chatting about this unknown masterpiece and we'll trace it back to your chickenshit mouth, got it?" Sweet paused, turned his head so he was in profile and gave the smallest of nods, then exited the bathroom, grumbles traveling on the air to their ears the moment he was out of sight.

Axel watched the now vacant space for a little bit longer, then shrugged and uncurled his fist. "He won't say anything. Well, unless you don't mind people knowing and then I guess it doesn't matter much, but since you were writing out your feelings in a bathroom stall I'm guessing you'd rather it stay secret." He risked a sidelong glance at Riku and held up a hand for another moment of silence. "I'm not saying anything either. You can cuss me out if you want; I planned on sitting here until lunch is over anyway." He hefted himself up onto the counter and folded his arms expectantly.

Riku summed him up with that same bored expression, the anger dimming. Apparently he was satisfied with whatever he found because his own fist uncurled as he slipped his hands into his pockets. "I can handle myself," he stated, nothing coming out more resentful than what was expected of a teenage American male who didn't get to prove his masculinity.

Axel laughed, the sound short and low, and nodded his respect. "Yeah, I know. I had a few of my own reasons to go along with that friendly tap—that incident with Zexion and the Spanish book was well-deserved, and that's all you need to know. Next person to insult your art is all yours, promise."

Silence stretched on between them for a little while longer, then Riku asked, "You come here every lunch?"

"Yeah." Axel kept his reply short, unsure of Riku's reasons behind asking the question. But Riku only nodded and left him alone in the bathroom, which had Axel feeling both relieved and disappointed, and not entirely sure why he was feeling either. He didn't have much longer to ponder the issue either when a vending-size bag of potato chips flew across the bathroom and landed just to the side of his thigh. He looked up and saw Riku walking back in with a can of one of those fruity energy drinks.

Riku pushed himself up onto the other side of the sink next to Axel and popped open his drink. "Sora's got fourth lunch and I can't stand anyone else down there," he muttered, looking straight ahead at the wall as he spoke, then at the bag of chips. "Offering for sharing your sacred space," he explained. "'Sides, growing boy's got to get his vegetables, right?"

Axel laughed for the second time, only a little surprised that another true blue back row individual had a similarly dry sense of humor. He pulled open the bag and took out a chip, letting it get soggy on his tongue before chewing it up and swallowing it—something he did with all chips and cookies, couldn't tell you why with a gun to his head but there it was. Riku held out the can in his hand, offering up a sip, but Axel waved it away with another smirk. "Two things to learn about me, my man," he said, holding up one finger. "It's the Fortress of Solitude, dude, not a 'sacred space.'" He held up a second finger. "Axel does not drink fruity piss."

It was Riku's turn to laugh, and he took a long pull from the can before responding. "Works for me, because this is the first and last time Riku ever offers up a sip of his precious Red Bull to anyone for anything."

Laughs, chips, and the rest of the school year's second period lunches spent in the upstairs bathroom, and Axel had a friend. Not some guy he joked around with in class, even if he and Riku decided an entire row of space between them was inconvenient for passing sarcastic observations on life, classmates, and class subject matter. Instead, he and Riku started hanging out _after_ school, even if it took Axel two more years before he was ready to let anyone hang out at his house, and they threw in actual conversations between the jokes. Through Riku, Axel met Sora, who in turn knew Roxas from a dance, and a couple of years later when he and Roxas were assigned a joint sociology project, Axel was able to get past _wanting_ to get to know him and actually making the attempt. A bag of potato chips eventually became a potluck, and a bathroom counter turned into the landing of the back flight of stairs between the math and language arts departments.

And no one ever did find out who left that tally in the bathroom stall.


	19. short

It was a simple enough plan, easily executable if his intended target remained asleep; his goal made even more attainable since Riku slept in the basement. Normally this act of retaliation might be construed as juvenile and perhaps even unnecessary, but really that was what friends were for, right? Besides, all Axel could think about was how he hadn't been able to drink a single cup of coffee yesterday morning while Riku got to sleep in and wake to a full can of his Fruity Piss Water.

Axel slipped into the kitchen on tiptoe and approached the fridge. Inside were three remaining cans of Riku's beloved Red Bull, and Axel retrieved them from the second shelf and set them on the counter next to the sink. He popped open the first can, just enough to pour its contents down the drain, then pushed the tab back down until someone who wasn't expecting an opened can wouldn't pay much attention to the difference. He drained the other two and put them all back in their places on the second shelf of the fridge, then set about making a fresh pot of coffee and waited for the recipient of his revenge.

It all started with a brand new air-conditioner and a Princess who couldn't sleep without cranking it up to full strength. Well, actually, it started with one of Axel's parents screaming about who overspent more that month while the other retaliated with how often they _didn't_ have sex. After three hours of wondering if they'd remember that the walls were thin and Axel could hear everything they said, he decided he'd have to go somewhere else if he intended to get any sleep at all.

Roxas's house was the closest but Axel could never resist keeping him up as late as possible with whatever popped into his head so he could listen to his monosyllabic replies until he finally dropped off and… snored. Loudly. Sora's house probably would've been the most ideal because there was an air mattress and a mom who made the best fucking blueberry pancakes he'd ever had in his entire life, but Sora was non-stop energy until two in the morning when he would pass out mid-sentence and… also snore. Softly. Riku, on the other hand, lived between Roxas and Sora, had one parent who was often away on some errand or other, and one bed... but he didn't snore. At all.

The walk over to Riku's place was roughly twenty minutes, and then another two minutes were spent banging on French doors until Riku stumbled up from the basement, eyes bleary and bemused, and yanked open the heavy glass with a _whoosh_ of air and a mumbled, "…the fuck?" One grunt of "parents" with a shrug that was more "what can you do?" than apologetic because if anyone was going to understand it was Riku, and Axel was permitted entry into Riku's basement where they dropped onto the lone mattress back-to-back with a "'night, dear" and a "sleep sweet, darling."

And, dreams be blessed, no more goddamned yelling. Sleep was welcomed with open arms… and only hit one hiccup when Riku tripped over Axel's shoes on the way back from the bathroom and felt he had to kick him for the fall. Fucker. Then he'd opened his eyes the following morning with the distinct feeling that something was wrong, aggravated when Axel attempted to roll out of bed like he usually did to force his limbs into action or drop heavily to the floor and instead smacked full-force into a wall—sometimes crashing at friends' places had repercussions, especially if you did it often enough.

After that, it took one glance over Riku's grumbling body at his digital alarm clock to see that the power was out, one tussle with a sheet that wouldn't _let the fuck go_ of his ankle, and a panicked sprint up the stairs to check the analog clock above the mantle. He'd drawn to an abrupt halt upon realizing that the digital clock on the entertainment center was _working_, which meant it wasn't an outage: Riku's goddamned air-conditioner had shorted the power in the basement.

He also realized that he had exactly fifteen minutes to get to work, which left no time for a cup of coffee. He issued a customary shout of "motherfucker!" in the general direction of the basement as he hopped around getting his shoes on and sprinted out the door for work. Without. Coffee. Six hours of washing walls and cleaning out a hot tub _in the summertime_ with a complexion that wasn't meant to see the light of day let alone the harsh July sun, and _no_. _Coffee_.

Axel had trudged back to Riku's house after work exhausted, but Riku had a pot of java ready all the same in an apology and Axel had spent another night in his basement with a back-up battery in the alarm clock because he wasn't ready to go back home. Now he was standing in the kitchen with three empty cans of FPW and a smirk that was threatening to split his face in two. And a blessed cup of coffee. Vengeance was sweet. Not that he was a complete dick; he'd bought a big can of the shit at the convenience store after his first cup of coffee—this was about shock value, not a grudge; dispelling the tension that had built up into a knot between his shoulder blades, both in and outside of the house. But damn, Riku's face was going to be priceless.


	20. rhythm

**I'll keep this simple: if you're here to read genfic and not boy/boy, skip this chapter. Okay? Okay.**

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He supposed this was what the term "afterglow" referred to.

It was the process of an ache seeping into his muscles, of evening breaths and cooling sweat, of hovering somewhere in the state of relaxation that was close to sleep but still fully conscious. It was fingertips trailing slowly up and down his back, the steady expansion and contraction of the chest under his cheek, his own fingers tracing the pale outline of a six-pack over Axel's stomach. His eyes were open just enough to watch the path his finger took, riding the little dip between muscles, watching it drag against skin still tacky with sweat, among other things. Axel was milk-pale under his clothes, freckled in places where the sun had reached past a pair of shorts or a t-shirt, scattered across his shoulders from warmer days. It was comforting, how Axel wasn't perfect.

Roxas had never really had the time to develop any delusions about sex, but he figured if he had, Axel would probably have broken all of them within five minutes. He'd gone into this like any healthy young man who'd graduated high school with his virginity intact: a lot of enthusiasm, very little finesse. Axel may have known what he was doing or not-Roxas didn't ask, and he hadn't decided if that was because it shouldn't matter or because he was afraid to know. Whatever he might have thought, he stopped thinking within those five minutes, because what he hadn't expected Axel's singular focus on making him feel good. And how inordinately good he was at it.

"We should do that again," Axel drawled somewhere above his head, voice only a little above a murmur. His hand paused just for a moment on Roxas's back, pressing down against the skin in a kind of embrace before resuming its track up and down, up and down. "You hungry?" Axel shifted beneath him, and Roxas couldn't quite see but could hear his head turning on the pillow, hair rustling against cotton. "I kind of feel like I'm going to go Donner party on my hand." After another pause, the pillow rustled again in a headshake. "Nah. Can't move."

Axel was a residue on his skin. Roxas could feel it, everyplace he'd touched, everywhere their bodies had rubbed together. The trail lines of fingertips, the pull of dry saliva; inside and outside, all the places Axel had been burned permanently into his nerves. He could never forget this-he remembered thinking that, somewhere in among the sweat and panting breaths and _oh, god, yes_, because no matter what his brain just never shut off. He could never forget this; it was here and permanent, and this memory was forever. There was no going back, no changing his mind.

Axel tapped his arm once, shifting again and Roxas could only sense that he was being looked at. "You?" Roxas made a vague noise in response, not really sure what the question was, too caught up in the loops his mind was traveling along. Above his head, Axel continued on with his random commentary, voice carrying him around without any real sense of direction. "That one movie with the kidnapping comes out this weekend, right? How about we _say_ we're going to see it and then just come back here instead?"

"Mmk," Roxas murmured, only partially aware of what he'd just agreed to. If there was no going back, of course, that meant that things were different now. There was a difference between a relationship and a _sexual_ relationship, right? He didn't really know personally, but it seemed like when they were dating, there was still room to backtrack, change their minds, go back to just being friends. But now-

"Or we could go see the movie. I can yell 'BOOM!' every time something explodes. Tell the good guy his daughter fell down the well. And... if we happen to make out sometime along the way, so be it."

There were probably expectations that went along with this, Roxas figured. He wasn't sure what they were, but he imagined possible standards that may or may not exist. How often was too often and how often was not enough? At what point did the relationship stop being about two people being together and start being about two people fucking? Where did the scales tip?

"Andif you want to slap me for it, I'm cool with that. Just, you know, not in the face. The world would be shocked if they saw an Axel who wasn't gorgeous all the time."

Roxas's afterglow was interrupted abruptly by a cold sense of dread that started somewhere in the lump forming in his throat and traveled like ice through his shoulders, down into his chest. Maybe this was a mistake. What if he'd fucked everything up? It had seemed like a good idea-had felt like the right direction ever since that night under the cherry tree in Axel's front yard, so an hour or so ago (how long had it been, exactly?) when shooting video game zombies had somehow become teasing had somehow become making out on Axel's couch, one hand on the bare skin at the small of his back with fingertips just barely past the waistband and heat at a slow build, hot ice tingling its way through his limbs-when Axel suggested in breath against his chin that they move to his room Roxas just nodded, nerves singing. He was pretty sure the game was still running on pause out in the living room.

"Oh yeah, and we can't go into auditorium two; Zexion says some drunk fucker walked into that Cameron Diaz movie with his girlfriend and power puked all over the back row." Axel laughed, the movement jolting Roxas's head out of place, turning slightly and moving his leg so it was more or less tangled up with Roxas's. Instead of feeling warm at the slide of skin against skin, he just felt cold; something empty tightening in his stomach until he felt sick. This was a mistake. It was a mistake. It was a mistake. He shouldn't have done it, shouldn't have got that close, shouldn't have let someone get that close and now he'd fucked up. Now he was going to get hurt because he just never learned to stay away, to not get his heart involved, to keep his inner and outer worlds defined and separate. To not love people because loving them meant they could destroy you with a single word.

Axel had been quiet for the long moment since the last time he'd talked, little more than a buzz in Roxas's ears. Waiting for a response that didn't come. Finally, he took a breath, and-"If talking about vomit right after sex didn't kill any sex drive you might have left, I'm pretty sure Fate exists."

The worst part was that it was Axel. It was _Axel_, the guy who'd delved into Roxas and found all the good bits and pulled them out to make him into a real person instead of a hovering shadow. The only person on the planet who could say that line as part of his pillow-talk. Roxas could already feel something shredding apart inside himself while he feebly tried to replace the bricks in his defenses. He was a fool for ever letting them crumble; it was always a mistake, always, always a mistake. He couldn't even make a feeble response to signal that he'd actually heard this time because the knot in his throat was choking him. He pulled in a deep breath instead, trying to steady himself, trying to relax enough that maybe his exhaustion would help him doze off and he could think about this later, when it wasn't so close and raw.

"Dude, I say Zexion has to clean up a mountain of puke and I get nothing?" Axel snorted, the air ruffling Roxas's bangs, and let out a short burst of laughter that sounded just slightly off, not really forced or nervous but a combination of both. Maybe a little desperate. "I feel like a caveman; knocked out my mate and dragged him back to my cave. Should I start feeling around your head for bumps?"

Axel's fingers gently threaded into the hair at the nape of his neck and the touch was far too comforting. He had to take another deep breath, use the oxygen to hold himself together. If he could just relax... just drift off to sleep... if Axel would keep talking, chest rumbling under his cheek along with the gentle pull of breath in and out, maybe it would lull him there.

The next few sentences out of Axel's mouth were a blur in his perception, vibrations in his ear. He could almost feel himself sliding under, breath and heart falling into beat with the body pressed against him. Sleep hovering just around the edges. He wanted to encourage it, shifting on his side for comfort, stretching the ache out of his legs. Murmuring a plea for unconsciousness, but the word that came out of his mouth was:

"Rhythmic."

Because Axel's voice was. It had a beat and a tempo, a definite composition and the words and tones arranged themselves to it. It was so easy to get lost in his words because there were so many of them and eventually it was like sitting and listening to the waves crash on a beach. It was subtle and familiar and safe; he'd fallen asleep on the arm of the couch or with a phone wedged against his ear before, wrapped in Axel's words like a down blanket.

Before he fully realized what was happening, there was a shove of Axel's hands against his chest. And then a thump of hard floor and carpet against his back. Roxas was pretty sure he'd yelled something incoherent in there somewhere, and then he opened his eyes and blinked at the blue ceiling and realized he was naked on Axel's bedroom floor.

He'd barely pushed himself up on his elbows when Axel began to appear above him over the edge of the mattress, red spikes followed by glittering green eyes followed by a broad, self-satisfied grin. "Staccato."

Roxas scowled. Roxas sat up gingerly, growling a muffled, "Fucker," for good show, pretending there weren't drops of condensation clinging to his eyelashes. And then, unexpectedly, he started laughing. It was brief, heartfelt and uncertain.

Axel propped his chin on his hand, elbow on the edge of the mattress, grin only slightly less maniacal and more fond. "All this time we've known each other and you seriously didn't see that coming? Man, are you getting soft, or what?"

"Don't put me in the same category as the princess," Roxas muttered, giving Axel a playful shove so he could climb back onto the bed-although Axel failed at not being in the way and excelled at antagonizing Roxas (or anyone else for that matter) at any available moment, so the process turned into a mild (naked) scuffle that ended with Roxas pinned by both wrists, Axel rubbing their noses together and grinning in almost childlike triumph.

Clearly, somewhere in the spiraling cycle of anxiety he couldn't help putting himself through, he'd forgotten just who the hell he was dealing with.

Roxas closed his eyes, let out a breath. "Why the _fuck_ do I love you, anyway?"

Axel chuckled, breath puffing against his teeth. "It's my irresistible charm."

"No. It's definitely not that."

Axel's lips pressed against his, only soft until Roxas tipped his head and opened his mouth, and then it was deep and heavy, all heat and tongues and teeth, until Roxas's knees bent and his breath quickened and a shiver ran down his spine, sweet anticipation coiling in his stomach and warming. Axel released him with a soft gasp, hands squeezing his once, hard, before relaxing. "How about that?"

Roxas's heart didn't start pounding, though, until he opened his eyes. "No," he murmured, the corners of his mouth twitching as he counted the freckles under Axel's left eye. "I don't think it's that, either."


	21. cheap apartment door

It was a door, and Axel was staring at it. It was a door that he'd been through many times, the front door of his apartment; one that he paid for and shouldn't have to waste minutes staring at, and yet there he was, standing still minutes after pulling into the car port, _staring_. He was caught up in the strange notion that he should knock, that he should request entry, that even though he split the rent with Roxas, he was… bigger now, had more baggage to lug around—he was about to drag a mountain of fine print and unforeseen complications into their shared space, and guilt and embarrassment and denial froze Axel in place on the mat.

So he stood, and he listened to the muffled sounds on the other side of the thin, not-metal not-wood door: to the soft creaks of linoleum as Roxas padded around the kitchen just on the other side to the right, to water running and pots clanking, to Alice in Chains playing quietly on the stereo, to the general noise of Roxas doing things that were more or less _for Axel_, for when he got back so he wouldn't be stressed out the way he was right then, standing on the welcome mat and staring at the door. It hurt, ridiculously so, hurt in ways that were good and reminded Axel that he loved this person who was singing along with Lane on the other side of the door, and hurt in ways that were awful and truthful and had him poised to turn and slip back into his car and pretend the day hadn't happened. So he simply stared at the door, analyzed it, waited like a kid watching the ropes swing in a game of double dutch—waited for the right moment to jump in.

The door was plain, lightweight, painted a shade that had Axel frequently contemplating whether it could actually be _called_ a color—not gray, not brown, not green, just something that could be labeled "cheap apartment door" and stuck in a Crayola box. Axel wondered if the not-color of the door truly symbolized how he felt, or if he merely _thought_ the door had no color because of his mood. He grimaced, deciding his thoughts were circling too close to his protective shell of denial, and looked down at the woven straw of the mat between his shoes: a housewarming gift from Sora, someone else he would have to talk to about the last hour.

There was no help for it now, the shell was cracked and Axel had to swim for the surface or drown in it. His fingers clutched the doorknob and twisted, grip bruising as he made himself open the door slowly, normally, close it softly no matter how much he desired to slam it, make it bang and rattle and _scream_ like he wanted to. He took care to study the linoleum with as much scrutiny as he had the door, if only for the first few seconds in the apartment, because he wanted to give those few precious seconds to Roxas before he unloaded a new set of problems neither of them had ever anticipated having to share. He didn't ready himself for the possibility that Roxas might not _want_ to share in this new weight—there was no way to prepare himself for it.

He had a split second to notice the faintest wisps of steam still wafting up from the sink, belying the dinner Roxas had probably deliberately timed to be ready for when he'd pulled into the carport over ten minutes ago, before Roxas was closing the distance between them in a couple of strides and kissing him. Fiercely. Hands gripping either side of his face to pull him in close, teeth clashing, tongue delving in when Axel's own lips parted in surprise; his response was automatic, mirroring Roxas's almost demanding desperation in a way he couldn't give voice to.

He felt the familiar pang of loneliness in his chest, cloying at his throat, dissipating as Roxas continued to hold him, refused to let go. He couldn't shake the fear that Roxas would one day decide that Axel was too much to handle, that Axel would use him up, burn him out. He knew his moods were upsetting, irrational, consuming, and he'd thrown himself into therapy at Riku's suggestion, knowing that he had to before… before his fears were realities.

He didn't notice when the crying started, too wrapped up in clinging to the person he never, ever wanted to drive away, but he had to pull away to breathe, struggling to suck in air, and his eyes were hot and his nose stung. He licked his lips, tasted salt—he'd been sobbing, messy and unselfconscious in his fear, in that ache that hollowed him out and left him colorless, "cheap apartment door." His breaths stuttered, but he didn't let go of Roxas, realized his grip on his shoulders may have been painful and tried to relax his fingers.

He almost couldn't look at Roxas, handle the concern and encouragement he saw even through the blurry haze of tears, but he held onto the image as he waited for speech to come back to him. He absently stroked Roxas's collar bone with his thumbs, finding touch calming, reassuring, something he always knew how to do. When Axel was ready to speak again, he couldn't joke, couldn't manage anything but honesty, "I don't know how…"

"Come here." Roxas didn't let go of Axel, or let Axel let go of him, just drew him backwards a few steps into the living room to the couch. He tugged Axel down onto the cushions, pulling him closer and closer until he was wrapped up around him, arms and legs, fingers soothing over his shoulders, combing through his hair. "I don't know how, either." He placed a few kisses on Axel's forehead. "But I'm here, and I'm gonna stay here, so." Axel was fairly certain he'd never loved Roxas more, for the way they could be scared and vulnerable together, handle everything together, even if that something was himself.

"Mentally ill," Axel blurted out, testing it on his lips, his ears; putting it out there for Roxas to hear so he couldn't simply talk himself out of it. His voice hitched, even so, grinding out of his throat, and in his fear he sounded _pissed off_. "She said I might be… bipolar." His eyes closed, lids dropping over his view of Roxas, and he leaned to the side so his head rested on the back of the couch, suddenly exhausted in a leaden but _fantastic_, resolved sort of way—it was a "duh" moment, something simple but monumental, something that had to be true and explained so much and offered relief and a chance to move forward. It also stuck Axel on a shelf of tidy explanations, turned his blackest moods and creativity into constraining facts, into something Axel despised.

It wasn't so much the doubting he was actually bipolar as not knowing who he was without it. For all of his highs and lows, Axel had never had to worry about _identity_; they were simply a part of who he was. Even if he had to watch everyone else around him fall away or struggle to hold onto… something: like Sora calling him late at night to insist on going out for ice cream in the ghetto because he had a craving like he'd been smoking the very best pot (while denying it had anything to do with Axel isolating himself from everyone for three days, snapping at anyone who _breathed_ too loudly), or Roxas weathering Axel's urges and disappearing acts while all but refusing to share his own problems, or Riku listening to all of his late-night rants and plans and confessions of ever-present loneliness until finally suggesting he get help.

Axel _knew_ something was wrong, had known it for years, back to when he was twelve years old and his mom had teased him for being a drama queen and his dad had snorted and insisted on one-upping his "teen angst" with "adult problems." When he'd stopped caring about making friends or doing anything with his hair or changing his clothes, when his grades had plummeted from straight "As" to a GPA that would never get him into a college worth attending. When he'd met Roxas.

He opened his eyes again, gaze taking in everything about the person in front of him, still holding him. Still concerned, reflecting his own sense of shock mingling with confirmation with mourning, grip tight and secure in a way that no one had held Axel since he was a kid. Tears sprang up again, but this time Axel laughed, shook his head in bemusement, pressed a kiss that was somehow lazy and frantic to the same spot on Roxas's collar bone.

This punk kid had been with him through the best and the worst, from the very first day things had started to fall apart, and maybe it hadn't been love at first sight or maybe it had and Axel'd been spinning his wheels too fast to realize it, but it had been enough. One stupid sociology project had been enough to let Axel know that he was different, that it was probably going to be a problem, as he'd darted through crowds of people, getting _stupidly_ high off of the contact and their laughter as he asked pointless questions and jotted down answers he'd never think about again, and then falling abruptly into the woeful realization that none of these people really meant anything to him, that they returned the same level of concern. And then there was poor Roxas, who hadn't interviewed a single person because _talking_ had been too personal, too intimate, like partaking in a survey was a lifetime commitment; he'd stayed for frozen yogurt, and he hadn't thrown Axel some empty pity party—and he never would, even when Axel would practically beg for one.

Like now, it was "we'll get through this," not "I'll handle this" or some accusing glare that probably would have just about killed Axel. He'd been seriously planning how best to leave the fucking _state_, just drive off and disappear because what the hell did a licensed therapist and a primary physician and a psychiatrist know, anyway? Sitting right here, though, Roxas didn't make Axel think he ihad/i to deal with it, he made him _want_ to. For himself. Because Axel had been afraid, driving home, barely registering traffic lights and pedestrians and motherfuckers who couldn't meet the speed limit, that maybe he wouldn't feel the same about Roxas once he started treatment, or vice versa; but this was the boy he'd considered over the glow of a single candle in a bowl of frozen yogurt, the one who'd stuck around for exhilarated Axel, for bleak Axel, and for the Axel in between.

"I love you," he stated simply, processing the last few seconds of silent contemplation and realizing how often Roxas rode these waves. "Like… really. A lot. I _do_ know that. And how."

Roxas was quiet, but not distant, as he traced the line of Axel's hair, brushing wisps back from his forehead with his thumb, letting him process, letting him know that nothing would change between them, letting him know he wouldn't be alone. Not on the days like this, nor on the days when he maxed out his credit card on a new couch that "fit better," and the days when he resolutely sat out on the rain-spattered balcony because it was the only place that was blank, that didn't pressure Axel to think a certain way or be what someone else wanted. "I love you, too. All of you." Every part, pretty or ugly, high or low, happy or sad. Roxas's finger traced down to Axel's chin, rubbing over the hint of stubble there, smiled softly, not denying that it would be difficult, but knowing just as strongly as Axel that it would be worth it.

Roxas's voice had this effect on Axel that was a lot like… sugar. Not the wincingly sweet kind that made his teeth hurt, but something smooth and natural, something that eased away tension and left Axel boneless on the couch. Or maybe that was the fingers threading through his hair. In any case, he slowed down—thoughts, emotions, blood, everything settled and gave him a chance to figure out where _he_ was at, truly.

It wasn't necessarily a good place, wherever he was, still caught up in fear and doubt and that ever-present spark of rebellion that would probably lead to multiple arguments over whether or not he _needed_ to be on medication; but it was something he could deal with now, something ihe/i could think about, without his view being obscured by… a different him. And, ultimately, Axel knew who he was, when he was most like himself—the him that wasn't constantly feeling like too much wasn't enough or like too little wouldn't give him a break. Apparently he just needed some help _staying_ that way, even if he was going to resent it later.

He reached out, returned touch for touch with Roxas, trying to group his thoughts together to voice them and then just deciding stream-of-consciousness had always worked for him pretty well. "We'll probably fight. Knowing me, three months into meds I'll think they're not working, and anyone who tries to talk me out of it…" He shrugged, a wry smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. It slipped when he thought of the other people he'd have to talk to, the people who hadn't insisted on sticking around throughout his last few years of on-and-off hell.

Fuck, he'd have to call his parents. Was he supposed to apologize? Like, was bipolar disorder a kind of twelve step program? He hadn't really asked the therapist about that, settling instead for humming occasionally and staring blankly at the wall above her head. But right now, these obstacles were still something that Axel could handle, hurdles he'd be able to jump, instead of crushing weights or road bumps he simply didn't have time for. And Roxas was still there, Riku and Sora were still waiting to hear from him, so however bad it seemed, it wasn't actually catastrophic. But today he just wanted to curl up, take the time he needed to process everything, be around Roxas so he could feel warmth and muscle, inhale and smell the spice of soap like an aura that wrapped around him and wouldn't let go. "We should watch _The Faculty_. Eat some cheap Chinese. Egg the neighbors' car."

Roxas raised an eyebrow. "Like we wouldn't fight anyway." Well, they might fight about something with lower stakes, just because it was natural to get irritated sometimes, to feel the friction between yourself and someone else. Or just fight so they could make up. The point was, they would get through it, come out stronger on the other side.

"I actually made you some ravioli, if you want that. Probably needs to be reheated by now, though." He'd forgotten about the strainer he'd seen in the sink, but homemade ravioli sounded _so_ much better than take-out Chinese, and Axel ticked off _this_ moment as the most he'd ever loved Roxas, and in a few seconds he'd probably amend that again. Roxas leaned in for a kiss, brief but lingering, fingers still toying over Axel's chin in a way that made his skin tingle like he'd been drinking wine. "Definitely can do the rest, though. The carton in the fridge is almost past the date." They just didn't eat eggs fast enough, but there were always alternate uses for them.

Axel kissed the fingers on his chin, then Roxas's mouth, and sat up straighter on the couch as he considered the best time possible for parking lot vandalism. He grinned for what felt like the first time that day, teeth bared in a way that anticipated drying yolk and glares from neighbors who would know it was them because who else could it be? "We get caught, we just say I'm crazy."


End file.
